Broker tips: Whitbread, Standard Chartered, Hargreaves Lansdown

(Sharecast News) - Peel Hunt upgraded Whitbread to 'buy' from 'add' on Friday and hiked its price target on the stock to 4,000.0p from 2,850.0p, stating it expects positive trading news from the company this year. "We believe that demand for UK budget hotels remains very strong with leisure and 'blue collar' demand particularly robust and 'white collar' demand still recovering," it said.

"In terms of costs, we believe that we are past the worst in terms of labour cost inflation and there is some upside from lower energy costs, although not this year which is 75% hedged."

Peel Hunt reckons that in the medium term, investments in technology will pay off in the form of higher revenue, from offering more room price points more dynamically, and more efficient marketing, from targeting it where data shows it will get the best return.

In the longer term, it expects Premier Inn in Germany to prove its investment case by becoming the largest hotel chain in Germany and a material contributor to profit.

Standard Chartered rallied on Friday after Jefferies lifted its price target on the 'buy' rated stock to 1,000.0p from 950.0p as it said the share price pullback since March "seems harsh in context of favourable operating trends".

It noted that the shares were broadly flat year-to-date, having fallen 22% from the 52-week high reached on 6 March, taking the stock back to the levels which prevailed before news that First Abu Dhabi acknowledged a possible offer for the bank.

Jefferies said the pullback offers an opportunity for either scaling existing positions or new money and said the bottom line in its view was that shares of StanChart do not reflect the return potential of the company that its estimates imply.

"One potential near-term explanation, as investors re-assess thoughts on banks given the regional bank failures in the US, is that STAN's deposit base is more corporate weighted which could exhibit pressure given mix shift to term deposits and higher deposit betas," it said.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank lowered their target price on financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown from 870.0p to 850.0p on Friday, stating it was "looking for signs of green shoots ahead".

Deutsche Bank stated that looking past the first quarter into the rest of the year, whilst markets have been "more positive" than preceding quarters, it believes investor sentiment still remained muted, with March being affected by banking turmoil.

As such, the German bank thinks Hargreaves Lansdown's first-quarter results could be "weak" but said the key will be to see how activity shapes up in April and beyond.

Deutsche Bank also thinks positive net flows could come through in Hargreaves' fourth quarter, the three months to June.