Piper Jaffray Increases Price Target on Limited Brands

Piper Jaffray has increased its price target on Limited Brands LTD after LTD's 3Q earnings and gross margin were both higher than Piper Jaffray's estimates. In a note to clients Piper Jaffray writes, "Following the company's third-quarter earnings release, we are tweaking our Q4 EPS estimate from $1.22 to $1.19, which reflects management's guidance for interest and taxes, but no other changes to our model. For FY12, we are increasing our EPS estimate from $2.15 to $2.17, which reflects a slightly lower share count. We are raising our price target from $34 to $35, which is based on 16x (same multiple as before) our FY12 EPS estimate." LTD shares are up $1.53 in pre-market trading to $33.40