Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: CI, CCE, JBLU, LIZ, LLL

Posted May 14th 2009 12:45PM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Analyst Reports, Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, CIGNA Corp (CI), Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Alcatel-LucentADS (ALU), Analyst Initiations, JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Liz Claiborne (LIZ)

Analyst upgrades:

Oppenheimer upgraded FTI Consulting (NYSE:FCN) to Outperform from Perform on expectations the stock will outperform in the second half of 2009 due to easier comparisons and a "deeper and longer" restructuring cycle. The firm has a $62 target on shares.
Citigroup upgraded Cigna (NYSE:CI) to Hold from Sell to reflect reduced balance sheet risk following the company's capital raise and the potential for a PBM sale. The firm raised its target price to $23 from $13.
Goldman expects Coca-Cola Enterprises (NYSE:CCE) to benefit from favorable soda demand and lower commodity costs. The firm upgraded shares to Conviction Buy from Buy and has a $20 target on the stock.
Novellus (NASDAQ:NVLS) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Bank of America/Merrill.
CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) was upgraded at JP Morgan to Neutral from Underweight.
Allegiant (NASDAQ:ALGT) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Analyst downgrades:

Jefferies downgraded AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) to Underperform from Hold as it believes consensus estimates beyond 2010 are too high and that shares are overvalued at current levels.
Goldman removed Liz Claiborne (NYSE:LIZ) from its Conviction Buy List, cutting shares to Buy from Conviction Buy, due to the slower ramp in the company's EPS recovery. Despite the downgrade, the firm raised their price target to $7.50 from $7.
Credit Suisse downgraded Louisiana Pacific (NYSE:LPX) to Underperform from Neutral and lowered their target to $4 from $5. The firm downgraded shares due to the company's recall of 48M linear feet of composite decking after reports of injuries. As a result, they expect the company to have negative free-cash flow into 2010.
Pioneer Drilling (AMEX:PDC) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS.
JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at WestLB.

Analyst initiations:

Soleil finds Valeant (NYSE:VRX) overvalued given deteriorating underlying trends for its core branded business. The firm started shares with a Sell rating and $14 target.
Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX) was initiated at Morgan Stanley with an Equal Weight rating.
Praxair (NYSE:PX) and Air Products (NYSE:APD) were initiated with Buy ratings and an $84 target and $75 target, respectively.
L-3 Comm (NYSE:LLL) was assumed with a Hold rating at Morgan Joseph.
Navigant Consulting (NYSE:NCI) was initiated with a Perform rating at Oppenheimer.

Tags: algt, alu, apd, azn, cce, ci, cme, eqix, fcn, jblu, liz, lll, lpx, nci, nvls, pdc, px, vrx

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-14-2009 @ 2:24PM

Iridium said...

People don't think it's strange to upgrade a stock to hit a 60% increase in share price. Isn't that a bit of an overvaluation?

I mean with stocks going up 350% in a month 60% seems like its nothing. Analyst manipulation of the market continues unabated.