The following excerpts explain why Zacks manufacturing sector analyst Mario Ricchio asks investors to hold the shares of NCI Building Systems, Inc. (NCS), the metal products company:

'NCI Building Systems, Inc. is one of the largest integrated manufacturers of metal products for the North American non-residential construction industry. The company is committed to stringent cost containment despite a rising order backlog. We applaud the move to take costs out of the system, since we expect a deceleration in commercial construction activity starting in the first quarter of FY08. While the relative advantage of metal products holds a long-term promise of further gains in market share, in the interim, NCS will have to deal with the risk of a further rise in steel prices and loss of sales volume from production discipline.

'We have valued NCI Building Systems using the P/E valuation metric and forward earnings estimates. At its current price, NCS trades at a P/E of 12.8x our downward revised FY07 EPS estimate of $3.52. This is a discount to the industry median multiple. Given the company's industry-leading position and its ability to gain scale through acquisitions, we believe the P/E multiple assigned to NCS should expand over the next few years.

'Despite its attractive long-term story, NCS shares are likely to underperform the market on account of its sales exposure to the commercial construction market. While the company should be able to offset the majority of the deceleration in the commercial activity with market share gains, we would not suggest investors to add shares to their portfolio at the current price until a bottom in the cycle is reached. This could be two years out. Our target price of $46.00 per share is based on a P/E of around 13.1x our FY07 EPS estimate of $3.52. We recommend investors to hold the shares of NCS in their portfolio.'