Morton's Restaurant "overweight," estimates reduced

03/23/07 - Prudential Financial

NEW YORK, March 23 (newratings.com) - Analyst Howard W Penney of Prudential Financial maintains his "overweight" rating on Morton's Restaurant Group (MRT), while reducing his estimates for the company. The target price is set to $22.

In a research note published this morning, the analyst mentions that the company is likely to have generated weak sales comps in 1Q07 partly on account of unfavourable weather conditions. The downward revision in the EPS estimates for 2007 and 2008 reflects reduced top-line assumptions due to weak traffic trends, the analyst adds. The EPS estimates for 2007 and 2008 have been reduced from $1.00 to $0.97 and from $1.15 to $1.12, respectively.