Ansys, Autodesk, Parametric: Kaufman Upgrades On Mfg Pickup

Kaufman Bros. analyst Barbara Coffey this morning raised her ratings on Autodesk (ADSK), Ansys (ANSS) and Parametric Technology (PMTC) to Buy from Hold, citing a pick-up in the manufacturing sector that she thinks will benefit both of the design software companies.

“Over the last few months we have been looking for signs of life in manufacturing and related industries as we believe that the CAD/CAE space will be an early beneficiary of the recovery,” she writes this morning. “However, until now, for every positive sign we saw such as uplifts in the ISM numbers, we saw a negative data point (such as over 50,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in September). So we kept looking and found some data points that point to longer-term rather than just monthly trends.”

She notes that metals and forest products shipments at CSX, while down dramatically from last year, are sequentially up from 2Q - and that CSX management asserted that Q2 was the trough. She says results from Caterpillar provided further evidence of a recovery, “with China doing well, followed by stabilization in the U.S. and uncertainty in Europe.”

• For Ansys, she lifts her 2010 EPS estimate to $1.98, from $1.83. Her price target is now $45, up from $36.


• For Autodesk, she raises her EPS estimate for the January 2010 fiscal year to 91 cents, from 84 cents. Her price target rises to $30, from $26.


• For Parametric, she raises her September 2010 EPS estimate to 90 cents, from 80 cents; her price target goes to $18, from $12.

In today’s trading:

• ANSS is up 94 cents, or 2.3%, at $42.44


• ADSK is up 96 cents, or 3.7%, or $26.67.


• PMTC is up 56 cents, or 3.8%, to $15.45.