Analyst opinions on stocks making headlines in Friday’s market

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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12/26/2008- 11:23am S&P REITERATES STRONG BUY OPINION ON SHARES OF APPLE (AAPL)

Wal-Mart (WMT) announces the availability of actual AAPL iPhone products on Sunday December 28 by way of some 2,500 Wal-Mart supplies. This is roughly 10 times the number of AAPL’s allow stores. We view this actuate as the company following end on existing strategies to add iPhone distribution partners and to construct brand awareness through a broader consumer hearing. We be persuaded this move will support the market-share gains that we project for AAPL’s smart phone products in 2009. We maintain our FY 09 (Sep) EPS estimate of $5.50 and our P/E-based 12-month target price of $127. /T. Smith, CFA

12/26/2008- 12:40pm S&P RAISES RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF GIBRALTAR INDUSTRIES TO BUY FROM HOLD (ROCK)

Our opinion change is based upon the body valuation. On a more pessimistic outlook for the building products business, we are cutting our ‘08 EPS estimate to $1.32 from $1.45 and trimming ’09’s to $0.89 from $1.17. Based on our revised estimate for ‘09, we are reducing our 12-month target price to $12 from $15. Based on our projected P/E, ROCK would sell towardly the low end of its historical range. But after a latter sharp estimation decline, we mean ROCK is attractively valued, selling at about 11.6X our revised ‘09 EPS estimate and with a current dividend yield of nearly 2%. /L. Larkin

12/26/2008- 12:55pm S&P UPGRADES RECOMMENDATION ON ADSS OF TOTAL SA TO STRONG BUY FROM BUY (TOT)

We believe TOT is well suited towards a depressed crude oil price setting debt to its geographical diversification, need of derivatives exposure, and one of the highest percentages of production and earnings derived from low-cost production areas among major European oil companies. TOT is likewise fast growing its Middle East presence, another low-cost area, and it believes this area will give an account of 20% of worldwide production in 4 years. We raise our earnings per ADS estimates to $7.83 from $7.75 in ‘08 and to $8.14 from $7.90 in ‘09. We lift our 12-month target value by $1 to $92. /C. Tiscareno