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Thursday, June 29, 2006

Calls of Note Part 1

- Piper Jaffray comments on Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK) saying their early round checks with 12 major Autodesk resellers (9 U.S., 3 Europe) indicate that, with 1 month left in the quarter, Q2 is tracking to be primarily in line with consensus ($0.35 on $446.9m). From a quota perspective, on average, the resellers in our sample expect to finish Q2 at 100% of quota. Based on our previous checks, see table below, 100% of quota from this sample of VARs would suggest a range of in line to 1% revenue upside for the quarter. Maintains Outperform and $47 tgt.

Notablecalls: Note that on
June 21 Piper was out with a call on ADSK suggesting the co may be in trouble. The stock is down ~10% since then. I would not be surprised to see a small bounce in the coming days. I would not hold the stock below recent lows, though.

- Merrill Lynch comments on Alexion Pharma (NASDAQ:ALXN) after the co officially discontinued development of pipeline drug pexelizumab yesterday. Merrill notes the value of this drug had been removed from the stock following its most recent failure in November '05, followed by guidance from the company that it would discontinue the study and program, so this news should not impact the stock and does not change valuation.

The primary focus for Alexion remains filing its BLA for Soliris for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and continuing pre-marketing educational programs for hematologists to help identify patients ahead of launch. Maintains Buy rating.

Notablecalls: Not actionable but good to know category. Note ALXN traded down as much as 5 pts in after market trading.

- Morgan Stanley reits their Overweight rating on VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) as we head into the back half of 2006 - a seasonally brighter period for the company. Quite simply, in such a challenging time, the visibility and deep-seated position of VeriSign's model makes this a must own name in firm's view. With this quarter its last one facing difficult compares over the lofty Jamba! numbers of last year, VeriSign has positioned its business to take advantage of some of the better security and Internet commerce growth trends in the market.

Notablecalls: Not actionable but good to know category.

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