Analyst downgrades: Thornburg Mortgage, Whirlpool, Jackson Hewitt

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Thornburg Mortgage, Whirlpool and Jackson Hewitt were today's noteworthy downgrades:

Jefferies downgraded shares of Thornburg Mortgage (NYSE: TMA) to Hold from Buy to reflect the ongoing dislocation of the mortgage markets and lowered their target to $3.75 from $14. While they believe Thornburg will probably survive its current liquidity crisis, they think the company's capital structure will be impaired further.
JP Morgan downgraded Whirlpool (NYSE: WHR) to Underweight from Neutral, citing valuation, higher steel prices, the difficult macro environment and competition.
Stephens cut Jackson Hewitt (NYSE: JTX) to Equal Weight from Overweight to reflect the company's recent results and concerns over the issues that have impacted the basic business.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

Merrill lowered Bank of Montreal (NYSE: BMO) to Sell from Neutral.
Lehman downgraded PDL BioPharma (NASDAQ: PDLI) to Equal Weight from Overweight.
Friedman Billings downgraded Tessera (NASDAQ: TSRA) to Market Perform from Outperform.

Tags: analyst, bank of montreal, BankOfMontreal, bmo, downgrade, jackson hewitt, JacksonHewitt, jtx, pdl biopharma, PdlBiopharma, pdli, tessera, thornburg, tma, tsra, whirlpool, whr