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Analyst upgrades:- HSBC upgraded Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE: RBS) to Overweight from Neutral as it believes the risk of immediate nationalization has been removed.
- JP Morgan upgraded DTS Inc (NASDAQ: DTSI) to Overweight from Neutral to reflect accretion from the Neural acquisition and its expectation the company can generate strong cash flow during the downturn. The firm raised its target to $18.
- Cowen upgraded Coach (NYSE: COH) to Outperform from Neutral citing the recent sell-off in shares.
- BJ's Wholesale (NYSE: BJ) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
- First Horizon (NYSE: FHN) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
- Spartech (NYSE: SEH) was raised to Hold from Underweight at KeyBanc.
Analyst downgrades:
- Jefferies downgraded Venoco (NYSE: VQ) to Hold from Buy to reflect lower 2009 reserve expectations and believes the company's financial flexibility remains a concern. The firm lowered its target price to $4 from $5.
- Deutsche Bank downgraded shares of Chartered Semiconductor (NASDAQ: CHRT) to Sell from Buy on expectations for greater losses in 2009.
- Morgan Stanley downgraded StatoilHydro (NYSE: STO) to Underweight from Overweight to reflect lower oil and gas prices.
- Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) and SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) were cut to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
- Goldman removed Oneok (NYSE: OKE) from the Conviction Buy List.
- Mattel (NYSE: MAT) was lowered to Neutral from Buy at Piper Jaffray.
- Oppenheimer initiated Universal Display (NASDAQ: PANL) with a Perform rating and does not expect enough advancement in the OLED display market over the next 12-18 months to drive share appreciation.
- Baird started Darden (NYSE: DRI) with an Outperform rating and $31 target. The firm expects Darden to meet or beat low near-term expectations given solid internal fundamentals.
- Citigroup assumed MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) with a Sell rating. The firm believes the completion of CityCenter is coming at the wrong time for MGM and expects the property could see default rates of 20%-30%. The firm has a $2.50 target on the stock.
- Hill-Rom (NYSE: HRC) was initiated with a Hold rating at Natixis.
- Wunderlich assumed Pinnacle Financial (NASDAQ: PNFP), Green Bankshares (NASDAQ: GRNB) and Renasant (NASDAQ: RNST) with Hold ratings.
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