UBS downgrades Reynolds American (RAI 96.95) to Neutral from Buy on valuation
Prudential initiates Legg Mason (LM 120.97) with an Underweight and $115 tgt, as they believe the market doesn't fully appreciate the risks associated with the Citigroup and Permal acquisitions (funds of hedge funds)
JMP Securities initiates SanDisk (SNDK 59.72) with an Underperform and $38 tgt, as they believe SNDK is ultimately a cyclical memory semiconductor company
JMP Securities initiates SNDK with a Market Underperform and $38 tgt based on valuation their belief that SNDK is ultimately a cyclical memory semiconductor co.. The firm lists the following reasons: 1) the co, trading at 27.8x CY06 earnings, is overvalued for a cyclical memory company; 2) growing competition from large players such as Samsung, Intel, Micron, ST Micro, Spansion, and emerging China/Taiwan players could commoditize the NAND flash market; 3) historically, the vertical integration model practiced by SanDisk of making, branding, and selling chips, memory modules, and systems such as MP3 music players has never worked within the semiconductor industry; 4) the firm expects a pause in NAND flash memory demand in 1H06 as the industry makes a transition from the relatively mature digital camera and MP3 music market to music equipped cell phones
JMP Securities initiates Portal Player (PLAY 26.66) with an Outperform and $32 tgt, as they believe the stock is attractively valued relative to its secular growth rate of 20% driven by the iPod market
Jefferies initiates Cypress Semi (CY 14.22) with a Hold and $15 tgt, recommending investors to stay on the sidelines until either CY is able to demonstrate cost savings, or a rise in the value of its SunPower holdings creates a favorable arbitrage opportunity
First Albany raises their Apple (AAPL) tgt to $80 from $73
Soleil downgrades BellSouth (BLS 27.85) to Equal Weight from Overweight, saying with the recent events in telecom, the big bounce has taken away much of the upside in the stock
JMP initiates Broadcom (BRCM 47.01) with a Mkt Perform; While the co's growth has accelerated in recent quarters, firm believes that the mkt fully recognizes its near-term growth potential
CSFB raises their Red Hat (RHAT 26.03) to $31 from $24 as they are comfortable that RHAT can meet their forecasts and believe that the shares are attractive at current levels for growth oriented investors
Lehman upgrades EDS (EDS 23.48) to Overweight from Equal-Weight and raises their tgt to $30 from $21, citing the number of measurable improvements the new mgmt team has put in place as well as checks indicating that tech trends in the U.S. are favorable
Majandusstatistika:
PPI -0.7% vs -0.5% consensus
Housing Starts 2123K vs 2020K consensus
Building Permits 2155K vs 2092K consensus
Core PPI +0.1% vs +0.2% consensus