What happened Shares of Livent Corporation (NYSE: LTHM), the lithium miner spun off from agricultural chemicals company FMC two and a half years ago, surged as much as 10% in early Wednesday trading, and is still up 6.8% as of 2:35 p.m. EST. You can thank investment bank Cowen for that. Image source: Getty Images. So what In a note out this morning, Cowen initiated coverage of Livent stock. The analyst only gave the stock a market perform rating -- equivalent to a hold, not a buy. Still, Cowen assigned the stock a $19 price target, and seeing as Livent stock closed below $17 yesterday, investors are reacting to the implied promise of nearly a 12% one-year profit. Now what Thanks to today's surge in price, more than half of that promised profit has already been reaped, of course. So at this point, investors might want to start giving greater thought to the negatives contained in Cowen's note -- and not just react to the positive projected price. To wit, in its note covered by TheFly.com, Cowen warned that it sees limited potential for Livent to expand its asset base (i.e., new places to mine lithium) given the stock's high debt levels. Personally, I'm not too concerned with debt here, though. With barely $250 million in debt against a market capitalization of more than $2.6 billion, Livent doesn't look over-leveraged to me. Of greater concern is the valuation. Livent isn't currently profitable, and its profits have been declining for two years straight. Analysts who cover the company predict the company will turn profitable this year, however, the projected profit of $0.09 implies a rather steep P/E ratio of more than 200 on the stock currently. Far from anticipating a climb higher to $19, I think investors should be worrying more now about how low Livent stock would need to go before its P/E starts to look more reasonable. 10 stocks we like better than Livent Corp.When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Livent Corp. wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 24, 2021 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source