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Leading domestic and foreign brokerages have raised their target price on Tata Consultancy Services’ stock by up to 28 per cent as the company’s March quarter earnings beat market expectations.
The biggest target price increase came from Jefferies while JM Financial, Edelweiss, CLSA, HSBC and Kotak Institutional Equities increased their target prices by 1-15 per cent.
Shares of TCS soared on the back of the strong fourth quarter performance and hit a record high on Friday.
TCS’ shares posted their biggest single day gain since April 2012, ending up 7 per cent at Rs 3,412 on the BSE on Friday after hitting an all-time high of Rs 3,421.25 intraday.
At close, the company’s market cap was just shy of the $100 billion mark at $98.9 billion.
However, the target price of many of the brokerages were lower than the current market price of the stock.
Several of them maintained their ‘hold’ ratings and said that the improved outlook was already in the price.
“Management commentary of strong growth in retail in FY19 and green shoots in BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) support our view of an acceleration in growth going forward — we build in 8.5-10 per cent constant currency growth over FY19-21 vs.
6.7 per cent reported in FY18.
However, most of the improved outlook is already priced into stock price,” said Jefferies.
HSBC said that the potential upside to the stock is limited due to the recent run-up in the stock price.
Shares of TCS have gained 26 per cent so far in 2018, outperforming the BSE IT index which has gained 18 per cent.
CLSA has maintained ‘buy’ rating on TCS and increased target price by nearly 14 per cent, citing consistent execution and improving growth outlook.
Antique Stock Broking has upgraded TCS to ‘buy’ on the improved outlook.
