• ING downgraded shares of BHP Billiton to Hold from Buy after the company withdrew its bid for Rio Tinto to reflect near-term economic conditions.
• Morgan Stanley downgraded Blackstone (NYSE: BX) to Equal Weight from Overweight citing concerns regarding write-down risks.
• Bernstein cut Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) to Underperform from Market Perform and believes the recession will drive lower than expected results.
• The U.S. Packaged Foods sector was lowered to Neutral from Positive at Barclays.
• SAP (NYSE: SAP) was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Societe Generale.
• Suncor (NYSE: SU) was downgraded at Merrill Lynch to Underperform from Buy.

Analyst initiations:

• Jefferies initiated Unilever (NYSE: UL) with a Buy rating and $27.95 target. The firm is positive on the company's operational restructuring and management team.
• Friedman Billings assumed coverage of Genuine Parts (NYSE: GPC) with an Underperform rating and $29 target. The firm does not believe earnings and sales can hold up vs. expectations given weak industrial production metrics.
• Kindred Healthcare (NYSE: KND) was initiated with a Buy rating and $14 target at Stanford. The firm believes the recent sell-off is overdone as the company's pricing and demand should be relatively stable through 2010.
• National Semi (NYSE: NSM) was started at Morgan Keegan with a Market Perform rating.
• JP Morgan initiated Owens Corning (NYSE: OC) with a Neutral rating.
• Stifel Financial (NYSE: SF) was initiated with a Neutral rating and $40 target at Merrill Lynch.