Piper Jaffray Maintains Cognex Neutral, Raises PT To $31 (CGNX)

Piper Jaffray maintained its Cognex CGNX Neutral rating and raised Cognex's price target to $31 from $28 in a research report published today. In the report, Piper Jaffray states, "CGNX reported an in-line Q4 of $0.47 on $84.9M versus our estimate of $0.45 on $84M. Upside was driven by a lower than expected tax rate. On the operating line, the company was $0.3M shy of our $23.2M estimate. We are trimming our estimates for Q1 to the high end of guidance and current consensus. We believe that CY11 is a pause year for the company as it needs to catch up on deferred spending in CY09 and CY10 that was driven by the economic uncertainty. We roll out our CY12 estimate that is slightly below consensus, which to us feels a bit aggressive in terms of growth and gross margin." Shares of Cognex were at $33.90 in pre-market trading at the time of posting, down 3.06% from Thursday's market close.