Piper Jaffray Overweight On Applied Materials (AMAT)

Piper Jaffray has an Ovweweight rating and a $22 price target on shares of Applied Materials AMAT. In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "We are seeing strong demand for capital equipment for power semiconductor devices. We believe this is being driven by increasing demand from the alternative energy, automotive, consumer and industrial markets. Driving this demand is increased government regulation and demand for energy efficient products, growth in alternative energy generation and the growth of hybrid vehicles. While LED demand is weaker than expected for TV backlighting applications, falling LED pricing is helping push demand for LEDs used in general lighting. We believe within our coverage universe POWI is the primary beneficiary of growth in LED lighting as well as the increasing demand for energy efficiency. AMAT is also seeing a minor boost from growth in Epi equipment and LLTC has a 12% exposure to auto." Shares of AMAT lost 30 cents yesterday to close at $15.08, a loss of nearly 2%.