High Performance Beverages Comp. (TBEV)

[golong22]

For those who think the energy drink market is saturated and there's no room for growth, read this!!! TBEV, next MNST?

10:02 EDT - Wells Fargo initiates Monster Beverage (MNST), Red Bull's main energy drink rival, with an outperform rating and $80 price target. It calls energy drinks "one of the few bright spots" in U.S. beverages, having grown 25.2% annually on average over the past decade, compared with the 1.7% annual decline in soda. Wells Fargo cites MNST's success at diversifying into tea, coffee and protein drinks and its growth opportunities abroad, where MNST has only recently begun expanding. That comes at a time when energy drink sales are still growing in the U.S., but not as fast as before. MNST up 2.5% at $73.11 . ([e-mail]; @mikeesterl)