Piper Jaffray Overweight On Illumina, Inc. (ILMN)

Piper Jaffray has an Overweight rating on shares of Illumina, Inc. ILMN. It is reviewing its price target of $61. In the note sent to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "Illumina pre-announced favorable 4Q10 top-line results, with revenue anticipated to increase ~44% to ~$260M, ahead of both our $242.5M and Street consensus expectations ($248.3M). EPS for the quarter is expected in the $0.28-$0.29 range, ahead of our $0.29 estimate, but shy of Street consensus expectations of $0.31. Additionally, 2011 guidance includes revenue growth of ~20% (i.e. ~$1,081M) and non-GAAP EPS of $1.40, both above our initial expectations ($1,066.8M/$1.36), but lower-than consensus ($1,092.6M/$1.44). We suspect the initial outlook reflects a certain degree of conservatism. Management also announced the launch of a new sequencing platform (MiSeq) as well as HiSeq performance improvements (600GB/run expected by Spring). We maintain our Overweight rating on ILMN shares." Shares of ILMN gained $1.39 yesterday to close at $67.34, a gain of 2.1%.