Analyst downgrades: Brokers and asset managers, CS, BCS and HBOOY

Posted Nov 5th 2007 11:10AM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Home Depot (HD), Merrill Lynch (MER), Lowe's Cos (LOW), Barclays plc ADS (BCS), Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Brokers and asset managers, Credit Suisse, Barclays and HBOS PLC were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Lehman downgraded the brokers and asset managers sector to Neutral from Positive and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) to Equal Weight from Overweight. The firm cited weakness in the credit markets for the Bear Stearns downgrade and potential further write downs at Merrill Lynch for its downgrade.
  
• Bear Stearns downgraded shares of Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) to Peer Perform from Outperform as they see risks to 2008 estimates from an expected decline in investment-banking revenue.
  
• Barclays (NYSE: BCS) was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral and HBOS PLC (OTC: HBOOY) was downgraded to Underweight from Overweight at HSBC to reflect the potential for higher write downs on debt securities and slower revenue growth.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• British Airways (OTC: BAIRY) was downgraded to Sell from Hold at ABN Amro.
  
• Merrill downgraded British Sky Broadcasting (NYSE: BSY) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• Merriman downgraded Zoran (NASDAQ: ZRAN) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• Deutsche Bank downgraded Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) to Hold from Buy.

Tags: analyst, bairy, barclays, bcs, bear stearns, BearStearns, british airways, british sky broadcasting, BritishAirways, BritishSkyBroadcasting, bsc, bsy, credit suisse, CreditSuisse, cs, downgrade, hbooy, hbos, hd, home depot, HomeDepot, low, lowe's, mer, merrill lynch, MerrillLynch, zoran, zran