Needham Maintains Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS) Hold Rating

Needham analysts Sean McGowan and Patrick O'Brien maintained their Hold rating for Dick's Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE: DKS) and issued an earnings preview.

The analysts noted that Dick's Sporting Goods issued better than expected guidance on January 27th, so they don't expect any surprises and feel that the company's commentary for 2010 will be largely positive.

The positive guidance referred to by McGowan and O'Brien included same store sales growth of 2%, as opposed to previous guidance which forecast a 4$ to 6% drop in sales.

The Needham analysts wrote that, "management said EPS in 4Q'-09 was "at least" $0.54, which would be flat with last year excluding one-time items. We are expecting EPS of $0.57 or better for 4Q'09; our estimate prior to the preannouncement had been $0.42. We expect full year 2010 guidance to be for EPS of at least $1.30; our prior estimates had been $1.25 for 2010 and $1.50 in 2011."