UPDATE: J.P. Morgan Lowering Price Target On Westlake Chemical Corp.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is lowering its price target on shares of Westlake Chemical Corp. WLK to $60 from $66, but it is keeping its Overweight rating on shares. In a note to clients, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. writes, "We trimmed our 2011 EPS estimate for Westlake Chemical from $5.00 to $4.90 to reflect an outage in Olefins and the shutdown of a PVC facility during an otherwise strong second quarter of 2011. We expect that Westlake will incur charges of ($14) million pre-tax or ($0.14) per share in 2Q:11. Westlake is likely to report very strong second quarter results due to sequentially wider benchmark ethylene margins. We expect ethylene margins to moderate from very high levels in the second half of 2011. We maintain our 2012 and 2013 EPS projections of $4.25 and $5.50, respectively." Shares of WLK gained 43 cents yesterday to close at $51.61, a gain of 0.8%.