Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: PCZ, ALU, BIG, GOOG ...

Eric Buscemi — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:40:00 EST

Analyst upgrades:

Kaufman Bros. assumed coverage of Ctrip.com (NASDAQ: CTRP) and upgraded the stock to Buy from its previous Hold rating. The firm thinks the company's Q2 targets are achievable while 20%-plus growth should return in Q3 as comps ease.
Janney Montgomery upgraded Cogdell Spencer (NYSE: CSA) to Neutral from Sell as it believes last night's capital raise removes risk. The firm has a $4.50 target on shares.
Deutsche Bank upgraded Map Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MAPP) to Buy from Hold following the positive Levadex Phase 3 results as it believes the migraine drug could generate peak sales of $250M in the U.S. if approved. Deutsche raised its target on shares to $12 from $5.
Northwest Natural Gas (NYSE: NWN) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
Petro-Canada (NYSE: PCZ) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) was upgraded to Add from Reduce at WestLB.

Analyst downgrades: SHPGY, IRE and WAG

Eric Buscemi — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:30:00 EST

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Shire Plc, Bank of Ireland and Walgreen were today's noteworthy downgrades:

Bernstein downgraded shares of Shire Plc (NASDAQ: SHPGY) to Underperform from Market Perform as they believe sales of hyperactivity drug Vyvanse will be lower than expected.
Bank of Ireland (NYSE: IRE) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS on the slowing economy and commercial property market.
Citigroup downgraded Walgreen (NYSE: WAG) to Sell from Hold as they believe the weaker consumer environment should magnify company-specific challenges and that earnings pressure will continue over the next few quarters.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

Analyst downgrades: SHPGY, IRE and WAG originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.