UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Color On AMAT Upgrade, PT Increase

Piper Jaffray, which raised its PT and upgraded shares of Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), is providing some color on the stock.

“We downgraded AMAT on 7/6/10 due to headwinds created by the company's thin film solar business,” Piper Jaffray writes. “In retrospect, the downgrade has been a bad call. We have had two opportunities to gracefully upgrade: on 7/21/10 when the company restructured its solar business and on 1/14/11 when Intel announced CY11 capital spending plans. We are upgrading to OW today to correct our error.

“We believe Street estimates for CY11 and CY12 are too low, the super cycle is intact, and the remaining crystalline solar business is well positioned as oil prices increase. In addition, we expect yield issues at logic customers as they move to 28nm that will in turn drive the need to accelerate capacity buys benefiting AMAT.”

Applied Materials, Inc. closed Tuesday at $15.66.