Novellus Gains As Pacific Crest Upgrades

Novellus Systems (NVLS) shares are trading higher this morning after Pacific Crest analyst Weston Twigg boosted his rating on the stock to Outperform from Sector Perform.

“Near-term spending patterns should benefit Novellus as memory and foundry companies begin to accelerate node transitions, adding new chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition and copper electroplate steps,” he writes in a research note. Twigg thinks the company is gaining share in CVD, could gain share in PVD and holding key customers in copper electroplate.

Twigg raised his 2010 EPS estimate to 91 cents from 78 cents; that’s above the Street at 79 cents. For 2009, he now sees a loss of 75 cents, versus a previous estimate of a loss of 79 cents.

Twigg set a price target of $29. NVLS today is up 48 cents, or 2.4%, to $20.81.