The Dividend Daily

Biotech giant Amgen, Inc. (AMGN) late Monday received a big upgrade from analysts at Deutsche Bank.

The firm boosted its rating on AMGN from “Hold” to “Buy” while lifting its price target from $84 to $108.. That new target suggests a solid 23% upside to the stock’s Monday closing price of $87.80.

Deutsche Bank noted it believes the market is undervaluing the stock, given the company’s above-average growth. The firm commented, “Despite a recent move in shares, we continue to see upside as Amgen still trades at a discount to its pharma peers despite better ROE (28% vs 21%), EPS growth (14.8% vs. -0.3%). We think the co’s dividend will continue to grow closer to the pharma avg over the next 2 years (we model 35-40% dividend growth and a dividend yield of 3% by 2014-ABOVE consensus). Amgen also looks attractive from the biotech view, as the co trades at a 20-30% discount vs its biotech peers despite EPS growth that is only 10% lower than the group. ”

Amgen shares were mostly flat in premarket trading Tuesday.

The Bottom Line
Shares of Amgen, Inc. (AMGN) have a 1.64% dividend yield, based on last night’s closing stock price of $87.80. The stock has technical support in the $80-$82 price area. The shares are trading near all-time highs.

Amgen, Inc. (AMGN) is not recommended at this time, holding a Dividend.com DARS™ Rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.