Starent Falls Hard, But Goldman Defends It

Goldman Sachs is defending Starent (NASDAQ:STAR) after the shares traded down 22% yesterday and today on news that five T-Mobile European properties (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK) selected Huawei as its supplier for next generation packet switched core networks (PS-CN).

GSCO reiterates their Buy rating on STAR shares as they believe investors are overreacting to the potential longer-term competitive threat from Huawei. Firm continues to believe that Starent's competitive position remains strong given its ability to perform complicated services such as deep packet inspection with high throughput capability.

They continue to believe that the WCDMA opportunity for Starent remains robust and see upside potential to their estimates in 2008 and 2009; The firm also expects the company to win new major contracts over the next 6-9 months.

Maintains Buy and $28 target.

Notablecalls: I think STAR represents a good bounce opportunity here. After all, it's GSCO defending it.