Piper Jaffray Cuts Price Target on AeroVironment (AVAV) to $31 Following Weak 1Q Results

Piper Jaffray maintained an Overweight rating on AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV), and cut the price target to $31.00 (from $37.00), following the company's 1Q earnings report. Revenues of $36.2M were down 23.0% on a year/year basis and came in $1.6M below consensus estimates ($37.8M). EPS missed consensus estimates by $0.33.

Analyst Troy Jensen commented, "AeroVironment reported FQ1 revenues and EPS below Street expectations, but the company remains confident on financial targets for the full year and reiterated FY17 guidance. While the revenue miss wasn’t as severe, AVAV experienced significant year/ year gross margin compression due to an increase in warranty related costs, lack of scale efficiencies, as well as an unfavorable product mix, which resulted in the company missing EPS by $0.33. Although discouraged by these results, we remain bullish on the company’s growth businesses (Tactile Missile Systems and Commercial UAS) and believe both these catalysts offer the company materially revenue drivers over the next 1-2 years. While shares were trading down 10%+ in after-market trading, we remain upbeat on the company’s positioning in these fast emerging high growth markets and see the pullback as a good value buying opportunity for longer-term investors."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on AeroVironment click here. For more ratings news on AeroVironment click here.

Shares of AeroVironment closed at $29.79 yesterday.

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