CNO Financial price target raised to $29 from $27 at Evercore ISI

Evercore ISI raised the firm’s price target on CNO Financial to $29 from $27 and keeps an Underperform rating on the shares. Following a “strong” Q2, the firm raised estimates by 4% to reflect some sustained spread tailwinds in annuities and underwriting favorability for health including LTC, partially offset by higher interest expense from the debt raise and the slight tweak up in expense ratio guide. However, because there appears to be a $40M tax related benefit to this year’s free cash flow and its not clear if that is sustainable, the firm views the stock as “a bit ahead of itself at the current stock price.”