Broker tips: Schroders, Dignity, Inchcape

29th Jul 2009 13:35

Fund manager Schroders is seeing strong demand for its European corporate bond product, prompting Morgan Stanley to upgrade the stock.Morgan Stanley (MS) has changed its stance on Schroders from "underweight" to "overweight" and ramped up its price target from 710p to 1045p, arguing that the market's expectations of earnings growth do not take into account a strong improvement in high-margin retail funds.MS has pored over Schroders' Luxembourg fund factsheets and has uncovered a £3bn second-quarter inflow of funds, as investors rush to gain exposure to the European corporate bond market.Schroders publishes results on 6 August. Despite tough conditions in the US and Asian markets, MS expects the fund manager's interim figures to surprise to the upside.It is time to take profits at funeral services provider Dignity, reckons broker KBC Peel Hunt, after the share's good run since early May.The broker said Wednesday morning's results were in line with expectations, with the second quarter showing a slowdown from the first. With the shares now trading on a price/earnings ratio of 16.4 and 10 times the ratio of enterprise value/earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, based on projected full year earnings, now "looks a good opportunity to book some profit", the broker believes.KBC has downgraded its recommendation from "buy" to "hold" in the wake of the share price's advance from around 510p in the early part of May to its current level of around 620p. The broker has a target price of 700p for the stock.Broker Panmure Gordon remains a buyer, however, and has a price target of 872p. "As the company continues to prove that it can perform well in a downturn, the stock should remain a core holding for now in our view," the broker said.Panmure Gordon has turned bullish on Inchcape after the car dealer's better than expected results on Wednesday morning.The company's recent push into Russia has not worked out so well but the UK, Australasia and South Asia businesses appear to be mainly responsible for results that were not as bad as expected. The outlook for the second half remains cautious, the broker notes, with car scrappage schemes round the world coming to an end. "While there are some encouraging signs, visibility remains limited and recovery momentum still feels fragile at this stage," Panmure Gordon believes. Nevertheless it has upgraded the stock from "hold" to "buy" and pushed its price target up to 29p from 25p.