BYD Company (1211.HK) soars 8.9% to HK$36.25, adding to its 9.2% jump Wednesday, which came on news its 50:50 JV with Daimler (DAI.XE) gets a business license, bringing the companies' plans to create an electric vehicle for the Chinese market a step closer to fruition. Still, Credit Suisse says it "would advocate caution" given that the JV is unlikely to produce any tangible contributions until 2013; in addition, BYD's excitement over this JV also raises questions on the commercial viability of its existing EV model (e6). The house adds that it sees further downside risk in BYD's share price, as over the next 2 weeks, it expects BYD to announce disappointing February auto sales, below-consensus FY10 earnings, and a potential downward revision of its auto sales target. CS keeps BYD at Underperform with a HK$29.00 target price.
* BYD Feb car sales down 49 percent from January
* Sales down 22 percent year on year - reports
* Shares lose as much as 4.7 pct after sales data
(Adds analysts comment)