Piper Jaffray Overweight On Gartner (IT)

Piper Jaffray rates shares of Gartner Inc. IT at Overweight and has a $28 price target on the information technology company. In the report Piper Jaffray notes, "We expect Gartner's 2Q results on 8/9 to be a replay of 1Q performance, with healthy new sales growth and rising wallet retention rates driving accelerating revenue growth and associated margin expansion. While shares have been star performers YTD (up 40.6% vs 1.0% for the S&P500), we continue to be buyers of the stock ahead of quarterly earnings in the context of an upward bias to estimates and price target." "Gartner's shares have been exceptional performers thus far in 2010, with a YTD gain of 40.6% vs 1.0% for the S&P500. To the extent that robust 2Q results provide upside to 2010 and 2011 earnings estimates, we see a potential upward bias to our current $28 price target. We would feel comfortable establishing or increasing positions in IT ahead of 2Q earnings in the mid-$20s." Shares of Gartner are down 6 cents to $25.31.