Duncan-Williams Upgrades Diamond Offshore Drilling to Buy, Raises PT to $86.25 (DO)

Duncan-Williams upgraded its rating on Diamond Offshore Drilling (NYSE: DO) from Neutral to Buy. The new price target was set to $86.25. In a research report published today, Duncan-Williams underlined better than expected Q1 results as a reason for this upgrade.

In the report, Duncan-Williams states, "Diamond recently reported first quarter earnings of $1.79 per share soundly beating the consensus estimate of $1.43 per share and our estimate of $1.52 per share on revenues of $806 million. Diamond incurred only 168 days of downtime for the quarter and expects only 21 days in the second quarter. The quarter was positively impacted by a 16 percent tax rate instead of the estimated 25 percent rate. Lower expenses than expected and a $8 million recovery on bad debt also impacted the quarter."

In today's trading, Diamond added 1.76% to its value and is currently trading at $71.00.