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MOST NOTEWORTHY: Merrill Lynch, Yahoo! and T Rowe Price were today's noteworthy downgrades:
- Oppenheimer downgraded shares of Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) to Underperform from Perform on valuation and their negative outlook related to the monoline insurers given MER's overall exposure to sub-prime mortgage related assets. The broker believes MER could have an additional write-down of $10B if the monolines were to be downgraded and that MER shares are valued more appropriately below $44.
- Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup and lowered their target to $22 from $33 to reflect the company's continued share losses in the search market and uncertainty over 2008 investments. Oppenheimer lowered shares to Perform from Outperform and lowered their target to $20 from $30 to reflect the weaker than expected 2008 margin guidance.
- Friedman Billings downgraded T Rowe Price (NASDAQ: TROW) to Underperform from Market Perform and expects margin pressure in 2008.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn will go public (at some point)
Retailers can't wait for Black Friday, open Thursday
Tiffany's serves up solid quarterly earnings
