Shares of Netflix (NFLX) are up $2.14, or 1%, at $234.81 after Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney raised his rating to Buy from Hold, writing that recent developments have removed hesitation he had about valuation, growth in the U.S., and expansion abroad.

Mahaney cites Netflix’s “penetration” of U.S. households, which now stands at 21%, with 23 million subscribers, is picking up speed. Growth in the company’s penetration has risen over the last four quarters from a rate of 4 percentage points of year-over-year growth to 8 percentage points of year-over-year growth, he observes. The rate of growth in the company’s penetration of broadband households — currently 27% of the total 84 million — has also doubled to 10% year-over-year growth.

Sustaining that clip, Netflix can reach 50 million subscribers by the end of 2013. Such an “aggressive target,” writes Mahaney, “implies that Netflix is becoming something of a video utility. It is a forecast that is impossible to prove — like any other forecast.”

But, “We see three factors that provide broad support for that type of outcome,” including a lack of concerted effort on the part of competitors Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL); the rapid rise of tablet computing, where video appears to be a big pass-time; and the prospect that Netflix’s subscriptions will move from household subscriptions to personal subscriptions.

And the valuation? His $265 price target implies a 35 times multiple of projected 2012 EPS of $7.57, writes Mahaney. Mahaney thinks the high multiple is warranted given “robust domestic core metrics” and inherent operating leverage.”

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What are we to make of Acer’s (ACEIF) troubles?

The Taiwanese computer maker, tied most of the time with Dell (DELL) for worldwide PC unit sales, late Friday cut its Q1 outlook for revenue, and its outlook for Q2 unit shipments, citing weak demand in Europe and the U.S., as reported by Mark Lee with BloombergBusinessWeek.

The American Depository Receipts traded in the pink sheets here are down $1.30, or 11%, at $10.55. On the Taiwan stock exchange, Acer’s ordinary shares fell by 7% or so overnight, to $67.80 in New Taiwan dollars.

Citigroup’s Kevin Chang this morning advises selling Acer, which had already been his position, but he also cut his target price to $49 New Taiwan dollars from $60 previously, stating that the forecast is more worrisome than the cut in Q1 results.

“We are not surprised by Acer’s weak results. We have highlighted in our previous reports that Acer is the biggest victim to tablet PC cannibalization of consumer notebook in developed markets,” writes Chang.

“What concerned us more than the weak results is Acer’s continuous guidance miss. With Acer’s outstanding execution track record, it should have seen this coming and made necessary adjustments such as a lower inventory level or aggressive cost reduction rather than setting up aggressive internal target/external guidance.”

Acer had better hope tablets peak at about 50 million units a year. If so, notebook sales could rebound in 2012. “However, if tablet PC becomes a bigger market than NB (as Apple indicated), Acer could become a much smaller company in the next few years.”

HSBC’s Jenny Lai also takes a dim view of Acer’s prospects: she cut her rating on the ordinary shares to Underweight from Overweight, and cut her price target to $61 in New Taiwan dollars from a prior $96. Her earnings estimate is cut by 16% for this year.

Keith Bachman with BMO Capital, on the other hand, thinks much of the forecast cut may have to do with shortages of components because of Japan’s struggle. Even though Acer didn’t attribute anything to Japan, Bachman thinks that “some component tightness limited the ramp in the month of March, and was not able to offset the weakness in January and February.”

Bachman reads through to the implications for Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ): In the April quarter, he sees PC revenue falling 1% for Dell and 7% for HP; for the July quarter, he sees revenue up 4% for DELL and 2% for HP.

Both companies could see some pressure on profit, however, from component shortages, whereas prior quarters had seen both benefit from falling prices for components. Bachman has an Outperform rating on HP shares and a Market Perform rating on Dell shares.

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Research in Motion (RIMM) this afternoon reports fiscal Q4 results for the three months ending in February, potentially one of the most contentious report’s for the company in a while.

RIM shares are up $2.29, or almost 4%, at $64.41.

The forecast for Q4 is $5.64 billion in revenue and $1.76 in earnings per share. But given that the company is set to start shipping its “PlayBook” tablet computer on April 19th, the focus may be on the forecast for fiscal Q1 ending in May, and any remarks management has to make about how they expect the machine to fare.

The estimate for Q1 is for revenue to be about flat with Q4 at $5.64 billion, and EPS of $1.65. In case you were wondering, the full fiscal year 2012 consensus estimate stands at $24.1 billion, and $6.81 in EPS.

A couple of folks on the Street offered last-minute previews of what they expect to unfold:

Abhey Lamba with ISI Group this afternoon reiterated a Hold rating and a $65 price target. He expects sales of $5.5 billion and EPS of $1.80 in Q4 — a beat on the bottom line but a miss on the top line, in other words. Lamba expects RIM to turn in BlackBerry units toward the low end of its forecast range of 14.5 million to 15 million. Lamba’s expecting management to forecast $5.6b billion to $5.8 billion in revenue for Q1 and 1.64 to $1.74 in EPS.

And Jennifer Fritzsche with Wells Fargo today reiterated a Market Perform rating on RIM stock. She’s modeling $5.63 billion and $1.74 — an “in line” quarter, as she sees it. She sees the company reporting 14.7 million units in the quarter, and 5 million in net subscriber additions, just a tad below consensus of 5.2 million. Fritzsche notes it is the last quarter RIM will provide that metric.

Stay tuned…

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Shares of F5 Networks (FFIV) are down 96 cents, or 1%, at $95.55, recovering from their lowest levels of the day after Goldman Sachs analyst Kent Schofield reiterated a Sell recommendation on the stock has he picks up coverage of F5 from the prior analyst Simona Jankowski.

Within a 119 page report, Schofield also reiterated a Buy rating on Aruba Networks (ARUN), which he thinks stands to benefit disproportionately from the continued construction of “ubiquitous” corporate WiFi networks.

Schofield, who has a $91 price target on F5 shares, writes that among the many predictors of how F5′s revenue will fare is the rate of growth in x86-based server computer sales. Goldman believes that market is slowing this year to just 2.5% unit growth, down from 16.6% growth in 2010, and that F5′s revenue growth will similarly decelerate.

That means estimates for F5 have to come down, Schofield thinks. He expects F5 will meet the Street’s 86-cent EPS estimate when it next reports, on April 20th. However, he also expects that the forecast for fiscal Q3 may underwhelm, at 87 cents, versus the consensus 90-cent estimate.

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Intuit (INTU) this afternoon reported fiscal Q2 revenue lower than expected but beat on the bottom line and forecast the year’s revenue below estimates.

Revenue rose to $878 million, missing the average $884 million estimate, yielding EPS of 32 cents, ahead by two cents.

However, Intuit did warn on January 7th that it expected to shift between $40 million and $60 million of revenue from Q2 to Q3 because of IRS delays in processing tax returns of customers.

For the year, the company reiterated a view for revenue of $3.74 billion to $3.84 billion, which, at the midpoint of $3.79 billion is below the average $3.82 billion estimate. EPS, however, is seen in a range of $2.41 to $2.48, above the average $2.41 per share estimate.

Intuit shares are down 29 cents, half a point, at $50.15.

Update: In a note this afternoon reviewing the forecast, Citigroup analyst Walter Pritchard writes that the the miss was simply a factor of the Street not updating its published estimates. He actually had $877 million, so the report beat his expectations. EPS of 32 cents was in line with his estimate.

Pritchard reiterated an Overweight rating on the shares, noting that the reiteration of the year outlook was a positive: “We view consistent annual guidance, including within segments as the most important indicator given the movement on the tax side.” He has a $59 price target on the shares.

The shares have now recovered lost ground and are up $1.06, or 2%, at $51.50.

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Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu this morning responds to Apple’s (AAPL) announcement yesterday it was closing in on one million units sold of the Apple TV, writing that the company should add support for its iOS apps on the device.
The one million units is in line with his forecast, and [...]

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Stifel Nicolas analyst Jordan Rohan today repeated his Buy rating on eBay (EBAY), lifting his target on the stock to $30, from $27, ahead of the company’s earnings report, which is due tomorrow. The company has already said that results will be at the top end of the forecast range [...]

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Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster this morning repeated his Buy rating on Apple (AAPL), raising his target on the stock to $390, from $371, as he revised his forecast for iPad sales. For calendar 2011, he now expects the tablet to sell 21 million units, up from a previous estimate [...]

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Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes today trimmed his forecast for 2010 PC unit growth to 16% from 19%, to reflect lower build rates in the Asian supply chain, indications that consumer PC demand is “tailing off” and the impact of cannibalization from the Apple (AAPL) iPad. For 2011, he now [...]

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UBS telecom analyst John Hodulik today raised his forecast for September quarter Apple (AAPL) iPhone activations at AT&T (T) to 4.5 million from 2.5 million, which would be up from the 3.2 million activated in the June quarter. In response, Hodulik trimmed his Q3 EPS estimate for AT&T to 55 [...]

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