Broker tips: Ocado, Darktrace

(Sharecast News) - Analysts at Berenberg continued to express "palpable caution" towards Ocado shares, telling clients that there was precious little to work with when it came to valuing the business. In a research summary issued on the back of the online grocer's full-year figures, they said that the company had "very low financial visibility, which we not believe to be a virtue when it comes to equity valuation multiple".

And that was leaving aside, its Ocado Retail unit which they judged "has not exactly been a bastion of steady progress and forecasts transparency, there is virtually no basis for credibly model the Solutions activity of the Group where to date, so much has been invested for such material accumulated losses, noting considerable capitalisation of costs."

They were therefore not able to estimate Ocado's medium-term financial output with any confidence "whatsoever", for which reason they did not have a recommendation on the company's equity.

However, their caution "remained palpable".

They also commented on what they described as "spoof" stories around possible bid interest from Amazon or anyone else for that matter.

Analysts at Berenberg reiterated their 'buy' recommendation for shares of Darktrace in the wake of the company's closing update and the conclusion of a review by Ernst & Young.

The update was ahead of that issued in September with full-year revenues pegged to come in up by 31%, in line with consensus.

Guidance for the 2024 financial year was for revenues to increase by 22-23.5%, against consensus on 24%.

However, the cybersecurity specialist had maintained a higher than expected forecasts for margins in EBITDA terms which offset the slightly softer-than-anticipated guidance for 2024 revenues .

As for the EY review, management had concluded that it had no impact on its financial statements nor its view of fair representation.

The target price for the shares was kept at 600.0p.