Broker tips: Land Securities, Autonomy, Immunodiagnostic Systems

Land Securities is looking "good value" as the market awaits Wednesday's first quarter update and an investor conference on Friday.

Panmure Gordon is looking for confirmation that the real estate giant continues to perform well and that capital growth should have at least kept pace with the IPD monthly index (+1.9% during the period).

"We believe the central London office market remains one of the most attractive market segments for rental growth opportunities - Land Securities has significant exposure here and looks well placed to benefit from rising rents in our view," it told clients in a note Monday.

"The company's shares look good value in our view," said the broker, which keeps its 'buy' stance and target price of 656p.

KBC Peel Hunt has still got a bee in its bonnet about Autonomy, predicting the share price will fall after second quarter results due to the lack of underlying growth, a high likelihood of a miss in Q3 and the need for a deal.

The broker reckons sales and earnings per share are likely to be in line with consensus at $220m and 29c, implying zero underlying sales growth and less than KBC's own forecasts.

It also worries that large banking deals - those above $15m - which it believes flattered 2008 and 2009 results, are drying up.

"Autonomy announced four of these deals in 2008 and another four, somewhat smaller, deals in 2009. So far in 2010, we have seen just one," KBC points out.

It started coverage earlier this month and maintains its 'sell' rating with £15 target price.

Daniel Stewart believes in running its winners, backing diagnostics testing kit firm Immunodiagnostic Systems (IDH) despite more than tripling in value since it started coverage with a 'buy' note in January 2008.

"With IDS now moving into the much larger fully automated testing market, we estimate that the group will continue delivering supernormal returns," said analyst Vadim Alexandre.

"On the strength of IDS's product pipeline, and given management's current business strategy, we are confident that the company's share price will continue to outperform the market well into the future."

The target price rises to 921p from 773p following last week's news that pre-tax profit rose to almost £11m in the year to 31 March from £4.78m a year earlier. Revenue jumped 49% to £37.16m, helped by demand for its vitamin D testing kit and successful roll out of the IDS-iSYS kit.