Analyst Upgrades

• JPMorgan upgraded Anadarko Petroleum (APC) to overweight from neutral on valuation as it views the recent pullback in shares as excessive. Despite upgrading, the firm lowered its target for shares to $82 from $90.
• Oppenheimer upgraded Office Depot (ODP) to perform from underperform and upped its target for shares to $7 from $3 after raising its estimates for companies in the Office Products Retail space. The firm expects trends to accelerate for the sector due to moderating unemployment pressures. In conjunction with the upgrade, Opco raised its target for OfficeMax (OMX) to $26 from $21 and target for Staples (SPLS) to $30 from $28. Both stocks remain outperform rated.
• C.K. Cooper upgraded iRobot (IRBT) to buy from hold with a $30 price target following the company's analyst day.
• Seadrill (SDRL) was upgraded to buy from hold at Jefferies.
• Vodafone (VOD) was upgraded to neutral from reduce at Nomura.

Continue reading Analyst Calls: APC, ODP, IRBT, NFLX, POM, MMSI, NTAP, LULU, LNCE ...

Analyst Calls: APC, ODP, IRBT, NFLX, POM, MMSI, NTAP, LULU, LNCE ... originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 14 May 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Jefferies downgraded shares of General Communications (NASDAQ: GNCMA) to Hold from Buy after the company's mixed quarter to reflect increased uncertainty from the recent weakness in its network access and commercial business.
  
• Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank and to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs following its Q3 report. Cantor downgraded shares after the company issued reduced growth expectations.
  
• William Blair downgraded shares of Town Sports (NASDAQ: CLUB) to Market Perform from Outperform to reflect the recent slowdown in new membership additions at mature clubs which they believe creates enhanced risk of operating margin contraction and decelerating EPS growth in 2008.
  
• Baird downgraded Blackboard (NASDAQ: BBBB) to Neutral from Outperform on valuation and expectations for only modest margin expansion.
  
• Lance (NASDAQ: LNCE) was downgraded at Oppenheimer to Neutral from Buy, as they expect higher wheat costs to significantly impact Q4 and 2008 EPS.

• Citigroup downgraded Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE: PBG) to Hold from Buy.
  
• eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) was downgraded to Peer Perform from Outperform at Bear Stearns.
  
• DaVita (NYSE: DVA) was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Piper Jaffray and to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James.
  
• UBS lowered its rating on YUM! Brands (NYSE: YUM) to Neutral from Buy.

Analyst downgrades: GNCMA, GLUU, CLUB, BBBB and LNCE originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.