Lazard's Ridiculous Target Call Gets a Pass

The lead of the story goes big and wide.

A Lazard Capital Markets analyst on Thursday became the latest on Wall Street to cut profit estimates on Target after the discount retailer reduced December sales projections amid a weak holiday retail season.

Yup, it's not just Target, and the Lazard analyst -- and I use that term solely for convenience's sake -- was "just the latest" to cut estimates. And the holiday season is weak, which we can't argue with.

But hold your cotton pickin' horses. That analyst, who is later quoted in the article calling Target "the first casualty of the holiday season," also says later in the piece that there was an increase in recent traffic and labels it "too little too late," which is fine as a numbers trim, but to go from recent momentum to first casualty?

Regrettably, that's not even his chief offense, which was completely ignored in the entire body of this article.

Let us now look at this doomsayer's price target on Target. Remember, savvy investor, this is "the first casualty of the holiday season" we are talking about here.

This analyst -- and again, we use the term loosely -- had a $67 price target on Target before this downgrade. In this note where he flagged the company's pain, he lowered his price target on Target a full $2. "I want my two dollars!"

Yes, he took his target on this $50 stock that is "the first casualty of the holiday season" to $65 from $67. That's all but a rounding error, and it's still calling for a more than 25% gain. Yet the analyst used vocabulary appropriate for war that the business media dutifully, casually, with lack of independent thought, parroted. A cut to $65 from $67 is less casualty than uninfected scratch.