Piper Jaffray Remains Overweight On J. Crew (JCG)

Piper Jaffray is reiterating its Overweight rating and $42 price target on shares of J. Crew Group, Inc. JCG as the company is set to report earnings Thursday after the bell. In a research note to clients, Piper Jaffray says, "We remain Overweight on JCG shares in advance of the company's FQ2 report on Thursday after the market's close. Our store checks revealed the chain broke summer sale later than the competition and had fairly quick sell-throughs. We believe that comps, sales, and margins will be in line with estimates and will show y-o-y improvement. However, we have slightly tweaked 2H earnings estimates lower as we revised Q3 and Q4 comps to be flat to LY in light of higher comp hurdles. As such, FY11E EPS is now $2.43 from $2.45, and our price target has been lowered to $42 based on 15x FY12E EPS." Shares of J. Crew lost $1.10 to close at $32.80 yesterday.