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business newsUpgrades & Downgrades: Altria About To Go Up In Smoke?
By
Justin Sharon
Apr 26, 2011 9:00 am
Wall Street ratings agencies set the tone for today's stock market.
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Discount suit seller Syms Corp (SYMS) headed 4.14% higher, doubtless delighting a newly formal Mark Zuckerberg. Besides, he has had quite enough suits from the Winklevoss twins.No such double trouble from the Olsen twins, who grace the current cover of Newsweek. Mary-Kate of course is also a fan of American Apparel (APP), whose shares skyrocketed 27.42%; some billionaires have all the luck. And a judge ordered an end to the NFL lockout. Good news, were it not for the fact that the first Monday Night Football game after 1987′s strike occurred on, well, some things are better left unsaid.Today in economics, consensus calls for a second straight decline of about 3% in the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index at 9:00AM Eastern, while an improvement is expected in April consumer confidence from the Conference Board an hour after. The FOMC starts its two-day policy meeting. And peak week for first quarter earnings rolls on with Amazon.com (AMZN), Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD), Coca-Cola (KO), Delta Air Lines (DAL), Ericsson (ERIC), Ford Motor (F), 3M Co. (MMM), UBS AG (UBS), and United Parcel Service (UPS) all due to report results.
Initiations
Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD): CSOD is picked up with Overweight at Piper Jaffray, which assigns it a price objective of $21.
Allscripts Healthcare (MDRX): Shares are higher before the bell on an Outperform initiation at Oppenheimer.
51job (JOBS): The stock is begun with a Market Perform at William Blair.
Glimcher Realty (GRT): GRT gets picked up with a Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Upgrades
Netflix (NFLX): NFLX is now upgraded to Hold from Sell at Maxim Group after earnings. See also Netflix's Rising Content Expenditures and the Effect on the Entertainment Industry.
Occidental Petroleum (OXY): The stock is up ahead of the open on a Buy-from-Hold boost at Deutsche Bank.
Northwestern Corp (NWE): NWE is now Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Mission West (MSW): MSW gets moved to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan.
Downgrades
Texas Instruments (TXN): TXN is taken to Neutral from Outperform at BNP Paribas.
Peet’s Coffee (PEET): The stock is now Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird, which takes its target down to $48 from $53. The brokerage has become increasingly concerned about the near-term earnings outlook due to higher coffee costs. See also The Future of Food Prices: Coffee.
Bancolombia S.A. (CIB): JP Morgan moves Bancolombia S.A. to Neutral from Overweight.
Altria (MO): MO is downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus, as operating income reflected a one-time inventory benefit in the cigarette segment, and volumes remained weak for both cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.
Brigham Exploration (BEXP): The stock gets cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Netflix (NFLX): The stock is downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Janney Montgomery Scott.
No positions in stocks mentioned.
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