Analyst downgrades 5-15-07: AMAT, AMGN, CC, FD and UL
Posted May 15th 2007 11:19AM by Kevin Shult
Filed under: Before the bell, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Bad news, Applied Materials (AMAT), AutoZone Inc (AZO), Circuit City Stores (CC), Federated Dept Stores (FD), Amgen Inc (AMGN), Unilever ADR (UL)
Three food companies, TiVo Inc (TIVO), Circuit City Stores, Inc (CC) and AutoZone, Inc (AZO) were today's most noteworthy downgrades:
- Deutsche Bank downgraded Groupe Danone (NYSE: DA), Unilever (NYSE: UL) and Nestle (OTC: NSRGY) to Hold from Buy as the firm believes the three food producers will suffer from rising prices for agricultural commodities.
- SMH Capital downgraded shares of TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO) to Sell from Hold on valuation as the firm believes the market has already priced in considerable penetration of the new TIVO/Comcast bundled DVR into Comcast's (CMCSK) core digital sub base.
- Matrix downgraded Circuit City Stores (NYSE: CC) to Strong Sell from Hold as the firm believes increasing competition is leading to lower selling prices and decreasing profits.
- BMO Capital cut AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) to Underperform from Market Perform on expectations that higher gas prices will be a drag on discretionary product sales...
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
- STEC, Inc (NASDAQ: STEC) was cut to Neutral from Buy at Merrill Lynch and to Sector Perform from Outperform at CIBC after weak Q1 results.
- Baird downgraded Amgen, Inc (NASDAQ: AMGN) to Neutral from Outperform.
Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required). Tags: amat, amgen, amgn, analyst, applied materials, AppliedMaterials, autozone, azo, boyd, byd, cc, circuit city, CircuitCity, da, danone, downgrade, fd, federated, nestle, nsrgy, rating, stec, theflyonthewall.com, tivo, ua, ul, unilever
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