Boston, MA 07/09/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR), a crude oil refiner and marketer of refined products was downgraded once again. This downgrade to “Market perform” from “Outperform” by Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) is the latest in a string of downgrades the stock experienced the last few weeks. The valuation range has been readjusted to between $26 and $30 from the earlier range of between $41 and $43. This new range gives an upside of about 11% from the Friday close of $26.81. It is currently trading at $27.25, up by 1.64% but still more than 30% off from its 52-week high of $39.42.
The stock has also been downgraded by Ned Davis Research from a Buy to Neutral rating this week. Just a few days back, the analysts of UBS AG (NYSE:UBS) took the same action and lowered the stock’s price target to $32 from $39 after lowering the rating to Neutral. Earlier on, analysts at Imperial Capital brought the price target down to $33 from $36 with an “In-line” rating. Many of these downgrades came on the heel of the last release of the company’s earnings, which disappointed the market. The $0.94 earnings per share reported by the company for the quarter was lower than the market consensus of $0.97. At $2.19 billion, the revenue was in line with the expectation of $2.15 billion. For the full fiscal year, the expectation for earnings per share is $4.15.
Bullish investors are overlooking the weak operating cash flow in favor of good return on equity, decent growth in net income, impressive record of earnings per share growth on a year on year basis and largely solid financial position with reasonable levels of debt.
The company has also been awarded a contract recently, worth $268.7 million, by the Department of Defense for providing aviation turbine fuel.
