GSK gains as Merrill hikes rating on valuation and dividend yield

(ShareCast News) - Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded GlaxoSmithKline to 'neutral' from 'underperform' with an unchanged price target of 1,450p.It noted that the stock is now trading around 18% off its April highs and 8% below the bank's price target, offering approximately 14% total return with a dividend yield of around 6%.In addition, Merrill said that underlying earnings per share momentum may be bottoming. "Consensus EPS estimates for 2015/2016 are now broadly in line with ours, having fallen around 20% this year and having more than halved since early 2012."The bank also said 2017-2020 EPS growth is back in line with the sector at 9%, while pipeline activity will increase to end 2016."Albeit not the key driver of our upgrade, we see pipeline news flow of interest starting to pick up which, against a backdrop of low expectation could be a net positive," it said.Still, Merrill remains concerned about the company's balance sheet, which it said continued to be stretched, offering little strategic flexibility and presenting risk to the dividend beyond 2017.At 1000 BST, Glaxo shares were up 1.5% at 1,323p.