Analyst downgrades: EMC, ELX, VCGH and CNXT

MOST NOTEWORTHY: EMC Corp, Emulex, VCG Holding and Conexant were today's noteworthy downgrades:

Citigroup downgraded shares of EMC Corp (NYSE: EMC) to hold from buy and Emulex (NYSE: ELX) to sell from buy and lowered its targets to $17 from $22 and to $12 from $20, respectively, to reflect their more cautious stance on the storage space after channel checks indicated a broadly softening demand environment, most notably for 'higher ticket' items.
Merriman downgraded shares of VCG Holding (NASDAQ:VCGH) to neutral from buy following the Q4 miss, as they believe acquisitions could slow in the near-term. They prefer to move to the sidelines until the company's outlook improves.
Oppenheimer downgraded Conexant (NASDAQ: CNXT) to perform from outperform as they believe the CEO departure could interrupt the company's turnaround.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

Hercules Offshore (NASDAQ: HERO) was cut to hold from buy at Deutsche Bank.
JP Morgan downgraded Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) to neutral from overweight.
Affymetrix (NASDAQ: AFFX) was downgraded to underperform from peer perform at Bear.

Tags: affx, affymetrix, analyst, bbi, blockbuster, cnxt, conexant, downgrade, elx, emc, emulex, hercules, hero, vcg holdings, vcgh, VcgHoldings