An analyst raised his price target on shares of Santa Ana’s STEC Inc., a maker of flash memory drives for industrial and corporate uses that already is one of the best performers in the county.
STEC’s rose about 3% on word of the upgrade before going flat in late afternoon New York trading with a turn in the rest of the market.
It had a recent market value of about $2 billion.
Needham & Co. analyst Richard Kugele upped his 2010 estimates for STEC and raised his price target on the stock to $46 per share, up from $40 per share.
The stock was trading at around $40 on Friday.
For 2010, Kugele said he’s looking for profits of $114 million, up from an earlier forecast of $100 million.
He said he projects revenue of $464 million, up from an earlier view of $433 million.
Wall Street analysts, on average, are looking for profits of $111 million on sales of $478 million for 2010.
Kugele said in research note that he expects “a high likelihood of a follow-on contract order with at least STEC’s top customer getting signed within the next three months.”
Although the company doesn’t disclose it, STEC’s top customer is widely believed to be server kingpin EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, Mass.
Kugele maintained his rating of “strong buy” on the stock.
“We continue to view this sector as only in its infancy and see significant upside remaining for STEC in particular,” he said.
STEC’s shares have been on a run since the start of the year. Shares are up more than 750% since January.
The company has an early technology lead that’s given it a virtual monopoly for what’s known as enterprise-grade solid state drives, which have no moving parts and use less energy in corporate networks.
