Illumina price target raised to $240 from $235 at Evercore ISI

Evercore ISI analyst Vijay Kumar raised the firm’s price target on Illumina to $240 from $235 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. Illumina has been “a controversial name,” says the firm, which thinks the second half setup “just became very interesting.” Evercore thinks quarter-over-quarter improvements in underlying drivers such as NovaX placements, pullthrough, China, and June exit rate comments are signaling that “numbers are close to bottoming,” which it argues “trumps” the guidance cut that was expected.