CBS Stock Gains As Analysts Praise Bottom-Line Strength

Shares of CBS bucked a downtrend on Friday, rising 3 percent as analysts praised the company's third-quarter earnings release from a day prior.

On Thursday, CBS reported per-share profit that handily beat the expectations of analysts while revenue fell slightly short, and on a conference call later that day analysts on several occasions praised CEO Les Moonves and company for boosting earnings under difficult economic conditions.

On Friday, some of the analysts rewarded CBS with positive research notes.

David Joyce at Miller Tabak, for example, reiterated his "buy" recommendation and boosted his short-term target on the stock by $2 to $29 per share. He dismissed the revenue shortfall as a function of timing for domestic syndication deals and said the sum-of-the-parts valuation on CBS is $37.07 per share.

The stock rose 66 cents Friday to $25.18 while the S&P 500 dropped 1 percent. The gains Friday for CBS stock wiped out losses incurred Thursday during the regular and after-hours sessions.

Zacks Equity Research reiterated its "outperform" rating on the stock on Friday, in part because it is enthusiastic about digital deals with the likes of Netflix and Amazon.com.

"These measures facilitate CBS to generate revenue from shows that have already run on TV years ago and facilitated the company in capitalizing its content," Zacks said in its research note.