Analyst says Barron's thesis on 3D printing stocks outdated
In a note to investors today, Oppenheimer wrote that a Barron's article which panned 3D printing stocks last weekend was too pessimistic. BACKGROUND: In an article published last weekend, Barron's noted that the shares of 3D printer makers had dropped sharply over the last year, after the magazine warned in March 2014 that the stocks in the sector were overvalued. Despite the large decline in the shares, the magazine last weekend told investors to avoid the stocks. Calling leading 3D printer maker 3D Systems (DDD) "wildly overvalued," well-known investor Whitney Tilson said that momentum investors are no longer interested in the stock, while the shares haven't fallen far enough to attract value investors, according to Barron's. OPPENHEIMER REBUTTAL: Barron's has stayed bearish on the 3D printing sector for too long, Oppenheimer analyst Holden Lewis wrote. Last weekend's article did not add much new information to the magazine's negative thesis from a year ago, and that call proved to be wrong on the sector's fundamentals, Lewis contended. The sector's fundamentals have consistently been strong, as 3D Systems and Stratasys (SSYS) generated only a small proportion of their revenue last year from printers for consumers, disproving Barron's thesis that the companies were too focused on the consumer space, the analyst stated. Moreover, demand for the companies' consumer printers rose significantly between the first quarter of last year and the third quarter of the year, the analyst wrote. Barron's and other skeptics argue that 3D printing is an old technology, but 3D printers did not become "true commercial products" until the early 2000s, and still have only a 10% share of their target market, according to Lewis, who expects 3D printers' market share to continue to grow. The companies' stocks fell in 2014 because of poor execution and high valuations, not fundamental issues, the analyst believes. Now that the stocks' valuations are much lower and in-line with historical norms, Barron's bear case is outdated, wrote Lewis. He kept Outperform ratings on 3D Systems and ExOne (XONE), and Perform ratings on Stratasys and Materialise (MTLS). PRICE ACTION: In late morning trading, 3D Systems fell 2.5% to $30.16, Stratasys dropped 2.8% to $61.74, ExOne rose 1% to $16.15, Voxeljet (VJET) added 0.7% to $9.32, and Materialise declined 1.2% to $8.05.
