Stock Buy Call: Chartered target price raises to 2 sgd by UBS!

Chartered Semi extends gains; UBS ups target to 2 sgd Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd extended Friday's gains after brokerages lifted their price views on the chipmaker following its forecast-beating first-quarter results. At 9.14 am, Chartered was up 0.05 sgd or 3.01 pct at 1.71 on volume of 6. 62 mln shares. The Straits Times Index was down 5.42 points at 2,598.03. Chartered reported last week net profit of 25.27 mln usd for the three months to March, ahead of its own estimate of 10-20 mln. UBS Investment said it raised its target price for Chartered to 2.00 sgd from 1.70 and maintained its "buy 2" recommendation, also citing the chipmaker's new deal with Microsoft Corp to manufacture CPU products for Microsoft's Xbox 360 game consoles starting in the first quarter of 2007. "We see this as a positive extension of a previous agreement. In our view Chartered has successfully carved out a niche position in the CPU space by leveraging on IBM's SOI technology," UBS said in a note. Separately, OCBC Investment Research upgraded its call on Chartered to "buy" from "hold" and increased its fair value estimate to 1.86 sgd from 1.38 as it expects better earnings from the company over the next two years. It raised its profit forecast for Chartered this year by 24 pct to 100.3 mln usd and by 40 pct to 126.2 mln for 2007 given the firm's positive outlook and expected improvement in margins.