ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) was cut to Neutral from Outperform at BNP Paribas.

Blue Nile Inc. (NASDAQ: NILE) was cut to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG) was started as Neutral at Credit Suisse due to analyst departure.

Comerica Inc. (NYSE: CMA) was cut to Negative from an already cautious Neutral rating at Susquehanna.

Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN) was cut to Neutral from Overweight at J.P. Morgan.

Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) was cut to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) was started as Underperform at Credit Suisse.

Patterson-UTI Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEN) was cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Prosperity Bancshares Inc. (NYSE: PB) was cut to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets.

Realty Income Corp. (NYSE: O) was cut to Sell from an already cautious Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

ReneSola Ltd. (NYSE: SOL) was cut to Underperform from an already cautious Neutral rating at Credit Suisse.

Sanmina Corp. (NASDAQ: SANM) was cut to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Read also: Top Analyst Upgrades and Stocks to Buy

Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE: ATK) cut to Market Perform at FBR Capital Markets.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) maintained Buy but raised target to $290 at Canaccord Genuity.

AMC Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: AMCX) raised to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) raised to Buy with $96 target at Argus.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) saw its price target cut to $670 from $770 at Goldman Sachs, but here is a piece showing just how much Wall Street chases price targets up and down based on sentiment.

Autodesk Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) raised to Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.

EBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) raised to Outperform at Bernstein and started as Positive at Susquehanna.

Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) cut to Outperform at Raymond James ad cut to Neutral at UBS.

Janus Capital Group Inc. (NYSE: JNS) cut to Sell at Citigroup.

Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) maintained Buy but removed from Conviction Buy List and price target lowered to $37 from $39 at Goldman Sachs.

Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) raised to Overweight at HSBC.

Westport Innovations Inc. (NASDAQ: WPRT) started as Market Perform at Raymond James.

EU and U.S. brokers make key changes in investment banks:

• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
• J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
• Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS) raised to Buy at Soc-Gen.
• UBS A.G. (NYSE: UBS) cut to Hold at Soc-Gen.

For the 2012 fiscal year, the company reported adjusted EPS of $2.40 on revenue of $17.2 billion. Results for fiscal year 2011 included EPS of $2.34 on revenue of $16.5 billion. The consensus estimates called for EPS of $2.45 on revenue of $17.04 billion.

The company’s president/CEO said:

In this environment, posting another record fiscal year in revenue, income and earnings was quite an achievement. … Excluding amortization of intangibles, stock-based compensation and distressed customer charges, operating income was $175 million. GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.39 cents and core diluted earnings per share was $0.54 cents.

The company also offered first quarter 2013 guidance. The company expects revenue of $4.3 to $4.5 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.51 to $0.62. The consensus estimate had called for EPS of $0.67 on revenue of $4.52 billion.

Jabil’s competitors, Celestica Inc. (NYSE: CLS), Sanmina-SCI Corp. (NASDAQ: SANM), and Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX), are also struggling with slowdowns in circuit board manufacturing due to slowing demand for desktop PCs, and in Celestica’s case, disappearing demand for Blackberry smartphones.

Jabil’s board has authorized a share repurchase plan of up to $100 million for the next twelve months to help “minimize the dilution from the company’s employee equity issuance.”

Jabil’s shares are down about 3.2% in after-hours trading, at $20.30, after closing today at $20.97. The 52-week range is $15.65 to $27.40. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of $26.15 before today’s report.

Paul Ausick

The company is based in Pleasanton, Calif., and claims 1,450 employees. Workday just added Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) as a customer of its cloud-based personnel management systems, according to a report from Bloomberg. In its filing the company claims to have 325 customers, including Kimberly-Clark Corp. (NYSE: KMB) and Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX).

Workday was founded in 2005 by former employees of PeopleSoft, which was acquired for about $10 billion by Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) in that same year. Workday competes with Oracle, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and other established vendors of business and enterprise software for managing human relations and payroll functions.

Other recent enterprise IPOs include Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NYSE: PANW) and ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW), both of which are trading above their IPO prices, and Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK), currently trading down about 9%.

Principal Workday shareholders include the company’s officers and directors and venture firms Greylock Partners and New Enterprise Associates. Shares outstanding as of July 31st totaled 137.54 million, assuming all preferred stock is converted to class B common stock.

Following the IPO the company expects that its total authorized capital stock will total 1 billion shares, including 750 million shares of class A common stock, 240 million shares of class B common stock, and 10 million shares of preferred stock. Class B shares receive 10 votes per share, while class A shares get 1 vote per share. The class B shares will be held by approximately 630 shareholders. As of July 31, no class A shares are outstanding.

The two cofounders together own a total of about 100 million class B shares, with David Duffield a cofounder and co-CEO, owning 73.46 million class B shares by himself.

Lead underwriters for the offering include Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

The full filing is available here.

Paul Ausick

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) raised to Buy at Lazard.

American Tower Corp. (NYSE: AMT) cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.

Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) raised to Buy at Canaccord Genuity.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) started as Neutral at UBS.

Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.

Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) cut to Neutral at Lazard.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) started as Sell at UBS, but this was also one of the six cheapest DJIA components this morning, if you trust analysts.

Knight Capital Group Inc. (NYSE: KCG) cut to Underperform at KBW.

Leap Wireless International Inc. (NASDAQ: LEAP) cut to Underperform at Baird.

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) started as Buy at UBS.

Sanmina-SCI Corp. (NASDAQ: SANM) cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.

Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK) started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Veolia Environnement SA (NYSE: VE) cut to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) started as Buy at Lazard.

VIVUS Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) raised to Buy at Lazard.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) started as Overweight at Stephens.

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JON C. OGG

Our review focuses on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A), Cincinnati Bell Inc. (NYSE: CBB), Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG), Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ: DLTR), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), Express Scripts, Inc. (NASDAQ: ESRX), Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Jack In The Box Inc. (NASDAQ: JACK), Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC), Teradyne Inc. (NYSE: TER), United Continental Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: UAL), Urban Outfitters, Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN), Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), and Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA).

You will see that not all of these are old technology giants meant solely as a chase of the fresh Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) dividend announcement. Our aim is to identify companies which can make payouts but which have been holding the cash for a rainy day for far too long.  Some of the more obvious Dividend Sinners are the same as you have seen criticized before, but many of these are overlooked by the media and by investors alike.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) waited far too long to adopt a dividend policy and look what happened to its shares after inaction.  Kohl’s Corporation (NYSE: KSS) was the last of the big department stores to have a payout. We have finally seen in the last year that Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), and NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NDAQ) capitulated and finally decided to declare a dividend policy over the last year or so; and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) finally jumped on board with a good dividend policy.

Of the 2011 Dividend Sinners there were only one-fifth (4 of 20) of the companies covered a year ago which have since decided to institute a dividend policy.  We would like to propose that one-fourth or more begin a dividend policy as 2012 merges closer to 2013.

Here is our list of The 20 Dividend Sinners in 2012 and why…

AAR Corporation (NYSE: AIR) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

AGCO Corporation (NYSE: AGCO) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) Raised to Buy at Janney Capital.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) Cut to Hold at Needham.

Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) Raised to Buy at Argus.

Dominion Resources, Inc. (NYSE: D) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.

Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.

Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) Raised to Buy at Citigroup; Raised to Buy at Stern Agee.

Infoblox Inc. (NYSE: BLOX) Started as Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley; Started as Overweight at Stephens; Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. (NASDAQ: JBHT) Started as Outperform at William Blair.

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) Cut to Neutral at Cowen.

Par Pharmaceutical Companies Inc. (NYSE: PRX) named value stock of the day at Zacks.

Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) Started as Buy at Citigroup.

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU) Cut to Hold at Argus.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE: RBS) Raised to Equalweight at Morgan Stanley.

Southern Company (NYSE: SO) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.

Total SA (NYSE: TOT) Raised to Buy at UBS.

If you enjoyed the top analyst upgrades and downgrades, you can join our free email newsletter that includes analyst summaries each morning sent right to your inbox.  We also cover top issues such as IPOs, special financial exclusives, mergers and more. Sign up in the box below.

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Assurant Inc. (NYSE: AIZ) Cut to Underperform at BofA/ML.

Cerner Corporation (NASDAQ: CERN) named as Bull of the Day at Zacks.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) Cut to Neutral at R.W. Baird.

China Life Insurance (NYSE: LFC) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) Cut to Underperform at BofA/ML; Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.

Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) Raised to Neutral at BofA/ML.

Genworth Financial (NYSE: GNW) Raised to Neutral at BofA/ML.

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE: HLF) Raised to Buy at Auriga.

RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

STMicroelectronics NV (NYSE: STM) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs; Raised to Neutral at Citigroup.

Terex Corporation (NYSE: TEX) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.

If you enjoyed the top analyst upgrades and downgrades, you can join our free email newsletter that includes analyst summaries each morning sent right to your inbox.  We also cover top issues such as IPOs, special financial exclusives, mergers and more. Sign up in the box below.

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JON C. OGG

Many of Apple’s suppliers are well-known, but the list includes Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: CY), Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. (NYSE: FCS), Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX), Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL), Vishay Intertechnology Inc. (NYSE: VSH), TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. (NASDAQ: TQNT), SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK), ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ONNN), and Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM).

The report is based on 229 audits, of which 14 were specialized environmental audits and 27 process safety audits. Apple found 6 current cases of suppliers hiring underage workers and 13 historical cases of child labor violations. About these violations, the company said:

In each case, the facility had insufficient controls to verify age or detect false documentation. We found no instances of intentional hiring of underage labor. We required the suppliers to support the young workers’ return to school and to improve their management systems—such as labor recruitment practices and age verification procedures—to prevent recurrences.

Chinese environmental groups last year charged that 27 of Apple’s suppliers were dumping toxic gases and heavy metal sludges into the country’s land and air. The company’s audits revealed that 112 supplier facilities were not properly storing, moving, or handling hazardous chemicals correctly; 69 facilities were illegally dumping or failing to recycle hazardous waste; and 52 facilities failed to label hazardous materials. Apple also reported that 58 facilities failed to monitor and control air emissions.

Apple had come under increasing pressure to name its suppliers and to hold them to a higher standard following suicide attempts by 18 workers and 14 deaths at China’s Foxconn facility in 2010.

Paul Ausick

Benchmark Electronics Inc. (NYSE: BHE), Celestica Inc. (NYSE: CLS), Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX), Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL), and Sanmina-SCI Corporation (NASDAQ: SANM) all hang in the balance.  Unfortunately, the consumer move to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Apple’s use of Foxconn is another wildcard (even with its suicide problems) because much of the business goes in that direction.  Still, upside remains in some of these names as most of these companies get business from multiple sectors outside of technology manufacturing.

We have looked at the current share price along with recent share performance.  Also considered is the fundamental trends behind each, as well as the consensus price target from Thomson Reuters and current and forward price/earnings analysis.

Benchmark Electronics Inc. (NYSE: BHE) trades around $15.00 and the 52-week range is $12.01 to $20.24.  With an $870 million market value, this one trades at 17-times expected earnings and 15-times expected 2012 earnings.  Thomson Reuters has a mean price target objective of $14.90, indicating implied upside is non-existent.

Celestica Inc. (NYSE: CLS) trades around $8.00 and the 52-week range is $6.79 to $12.48, it is worth about $1.7 billion market value, this one trades at under 8-times expected earnings and slightly further under 8-times expected 2012 earnings. Thomson Reuters has a mean price target objective of $9.88, indicating implied upside of about 23%.

Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX) trades around $6.00, its 52-week range is $5.05 to $8.50, and it has a market cap of $4.3 billion, and .  With an $870 million market value.  Flextronics trades at 7-times expected earnings and about 5.6-times expected 2012 earnings. Thomson Reuters has a mean price target of $8.00, indicating implied upside of about 33%.

Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL) trades around $21.40 and the 52-week range is $13.94 to $23.09, so it is the least punished of the whole EMS lot.  Jabil has a market value of about $4.4 billion.  Its fiscal year is not until August, so its expected earnings multiple today is about 8.3-times expected earnings. Thomson Reuters has a mean price target of $23.73, indicating implied upside of about 10%.

Sanmina-SCI Corporation (NASDAQ: SANM) has a price of about $9.75 and the market value is just under $800 million.  Its 52-week range is $6.01 to $17.32.  Its fiscal year ends in September and it trades at a mere 6.7-times expected earnings. Thomson Reuters has a mean price target objective of $10.88, indicating implied upside of about 11%.

The achilles heel for these companies and their valuation is that all are international today and none of the group mentioned offer dividends to reward shareholders during the economic lull. 

The good news is that these companies add and contract with the global trends. A slower India and China are not helping, but Japan has been coming back on after last year’s earthquake and tsunami wiped out the Japanese growth story.  These companies are also tending to a poor European situation right now.  Most earnings estimates for the year have already come down in recent weeks, but the question is whether or not those have come down enough.

JON C. OGG