Coach (COH) Stock Gets Rating Upgrade, CNBC's 'Halftime Report' Debates What to Do

CNBC's 'Fast Money Halftime Report' Panel debates whether Coach is a buy after its upgrade to outperform its price target from Robert W Baird &Co.
By Giovanni Bruno ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Coach  (COH) are higher by 2.93% to $43.54 on Monday afternoon, following a rating upgrade to "outperform" from "neutral' at Robert W Baird & Co. The firm says Coach will "outperform" its $50 price target and additionally the stock is up 30% year to date.

"The firm citing brand transformation, and improving sales will push the stock higher," Scott Wapner reported on today's CNBC "Fast Money Halftime Report." 

The "Fast Money Halftime Report" panel debated whether or not this evaluation of Coach was fair, and if they would be looking to get into this stock.

"The difference is now it's selling products in the outlets, so to me that's not the old Coach. Now we're betting on a premium brand selling at off-brand pricing," Stephen Weiss, a managing partner at Short Hills Capital Partners, explained.

"I'm not there yet, it's not a cheap stock, and I think the easy money has already been made," Weiss added.

The panelists then debated why this stock was seeing such a surge recently, and future expectations. 

"This stock is breaking out, from a price action standpoint there are almost no luxury goods maker that have a chart that looks this good, something else could be happening here," Joshua Brown, CEO and Co-founder of Ritholtz Management, said.

"What if you have one of these international buyers that looks at Coach and goes 'yeah we can do this.' People can do it more and more with all the currency fluctuation. You're going to see more of these types of global deals and I wouldn't be shocked if people consider Coach," Brown said as for what that something else could be.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings rates Coach as a "Hold" with a score of "C." The primary factors that have impacted TheStreet Ratings rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks.

The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and increase in net income. However, as a counter to these strengths, TheStreet Ratings finds that the company's return on equity has been disappointing.

TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. 

You can view the full analysis from the report here: COH

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