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Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (AKS, AU, FTE, GGP, HON, LAZ, PNW, GOLD, TEF, TEVA, TMK, UNFI, URI, MTN, WCG)

Administrator — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:23:47 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls this Monday morning.

AK Steel Holding Corporation (NYSE: AKS) Raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (NYSE: AU) Cut to Sell from Neutral by Goldman Sachs.

France Telecom S.A. (NYSE: FTE) Cut to Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.

Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) Raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE: PNW) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Randgold Resources Limited (NASDAQ: GOLD) Cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Telefonica, S.A. (NYSE: TEF) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at HSBC.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ: TEVA) Reiterated Buy with $52 target at Canaccord Genuity.
Torchmark Corp. (NYSE: TMK) Raised to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse.
United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: UNFI) Raised to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity.
United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) Raised to Top Pick at RBC.
Vail Resorts Inc. (NYSE: MTN) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) named as value stock of the day at Zacks Investment Research.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AKS, AU, FTE, GGP, gold, HON, LAZ, MTN, PNW, TEF, TEVA, TMK, UNFI, URI, WCG

United Rentals, From Failed Private Equity Buyout To Acquirer (URI, RRR)

Administrator — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:21:04 +0000

United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) is a leftover public company from the wave of failed private equity buyouts (of Cerberus) right before the recession took hold. As far as infrastructure building is concerned, it is the world’s top equipment rental company that serves the construction and industrial infrastructure market throughout North America. Now it is making an acquisition of its own.

This morning came word that United Rentals is acquiring RSC Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: RRR), another equipment leasing outfit, for an enterprise value of $4.2 billion after the inclusion of $2.3 billion in net debt. The cash-and-stock transaction values the company at $18.00 per share. The boards of directors of both companies have also unanimously approved this buyout and are recommending that holders approve the proposed transaction.

If you look at the combined outfit, the claim is a more attractive business mix, with greater scale and with enhanced growth prospects. On paper, this is one of those mergers which actually seems to make sense if its cost savings and new growth segments can be executed upon.

United Rentals has a market cap of $1.6 billion before the effects of this deal and its $26.04 share price compares to a 52-week trading range of $12.81 to $34.78. RSC Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: RRR) closed on Thursday at $11.37 and its 52-week trading range is $6.26 to $15.04 and its market capitalization was nearly $1.2 billion. RSC briefly traded above $18.00 per share and went up to as high as $22.00 in 2007 before the recession kicked in.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Business Services, Industry, Infrastructure, Mergers and Buy Outs, Private Equity Tagged: RRR, URI

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (CRL, CSCO, GLW, EXPE, PPDI, RL, PCLN, REGN, RIMM, RPM, BID, TSO, TIVO, URI)

Administrator — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:06:01 +0000

These are some of this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen having an impact from Wall Street research calls.

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) Started as Hold at Citigroup.
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) Raised to Sector Perform at RBC.
Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) Maintained Buy but cut target to $25 at BofA/ML.
Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) Started as Outperform at Wedbush.
Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc. (NASDAQ: PPDI) Started as Hold at Citigroup.
Polo Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN) Started as Outperform at Wedbush.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) Cut to Underperform at BofA/ML.
Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.
RPM International (NYSE: RPM) Raised to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Sotheby’s Inc. (NYSE: BID) called the value stock of the day at Zacks.
Tesoro Corporation (NYSE: TSO) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) Started as Buy at Brean Murray.
United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: BID, CRL, CSCO, EXPE, GLW, PCLN, PPDI, REGN, RIMM, RL, RPM, TIVO, TSO, URI

Company Winners & Losers Expected From Hurricane Irene (ALL, TRV, CB, BRK-A, DUK, D, ETR, AWK, VZ, HD, LOW, URI, PPG, BECN, IBI, BGG, GNRC, CRD-B, CLH, NYX, NDAQ)

Administrator — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:24:57 +0000

Will Hurricane Irene cost the United States $10 billion? $15 billion? Or even more? It really depends upon whom you speak with on this front. The expected damage count is growing now that the hurricane path looks far more definite since it is closer and closer to landfall. One thing is almost certain… The damage is expected to be big and it is going to hit areas of the country which usually are not as badly affected by summer weather. This will be one weekend to remember on the Eastern Seaboard. We have pulled some economic data and put together some of the likely winners and losers as far as companies are concerned from this storm and its aftermath.

UBS has issued a brief report that hurricanes tend to have little impact on GDP and on Federal Reserve policy, but one notion that they do influence is employment. The observation is that companies in hurricane areas tend to push out their new hiring decisions by about a month.

We wanted to take a look at just some of the companies in each sector that would win and lose from the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. You can imagine that insurance companies are going to be hit by damage claims, but what about power, water, and telecom? And imagine the construction and rebuilding business. And the building supplies and service providers.

Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) and The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV) have exposure in the areas around North Carolina. That is where the landfall is expected first. Perhaps more worrisome is the upper Eastern Seaboard where Hurricane Irene is expected to strafe this weekend. The Chubb Corporation (NYSE: CB) has exposure in New York and on north throughout southern New England, as does Allstate and Travelers. Chubb noted on its site, “Hurricane Irene Alert: Chubb is helping its customers prepare for the storm.” Allstate also has a claim and preparedness site.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) is also likely not immune as Mr. Buffett has joked in the past that he was lucky enough to avoid hurricanes for two straight years.

Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE: DUK) spoke on CNBC this morning saying that while they do expect damage that they have their staff ready to go to assist in the region. Power lines and power equipments tend to not do well in floods, 100 mile an hour wind, lightning, and with flying debris. Dominion Resources Inc. (NYSE: D) saw a brief outage at a nuclear plant this week due to the earthquake, but it has already said that its Virginia and North Caroline units are preparing for the aftermath. Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) has the often controversial Indian Point nuclear power plant located about 35 miles the middle of Manhattan.

This could have an impact on American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK) as well, even though this company is very diversified throughout parts of America. The New Jersey based water utility has operations at risk in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is also diversified all over the United States, particularly on wireless. That being said, it has real land line and phone line exposure throughout much of the projected areas in New York and the Northeast as the former Bell Atlantic.

Filed under: Economy, Housing, Infrastructure, Retail, Utilities Tagged: ALL, AWK, BECN, BGG, BRK-A, CB, CLH, CRD-B, D, DUK, ETR, GNRC, HD, IBI, LOW, NDAQ, NYX, PPG, TRV, URI, VZ

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (BX, COP, DISCA, GGP, HOLX, AGN, NVDA, STRA, TKC, UNH, URI, WM, WLP)

Administrator — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:02:21 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls this Thursday morning.

The Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) Maintained Buy on Focus List with $81 target at Argus.
Discovery Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISCA) Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.
General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Hologic Inc. (NASDAQ: HOLX) replaced Allergan Inc. (NYSE: AGN) on the Convition Buy List at Goldman Sachs.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
Strayer Education (NASDAQ: STRA) was named the Bear of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
Turkcell (NYSE: TKC) Cut to Underperform at Credit Suisse.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) Started as Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Waste Management Inc. (NYSE: WM) Maintained BUY with $44 target at Argus.
WellPoint Inc. (NYSE: WLP) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, dividend trends, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AGN, BX, COP, DISCA, GGP, HOLX, NVDA, STRA, TKC, UNH, URI, WLP, WM

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (ALTR, ACI, CBOE, FWLT, GE, JBHT, KSU, NFLX, NSC, PCX, CRM, MMM, UNP, URI, VVUS, XLNX)

Administrator — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:21:18 +0000

These are some of this Wednesday’s key analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research calls.

Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR) Started as Neutral at Janney.
Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
CBOE Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) Started as Hold at Jefferies.
Foster Wheeler AG (NASDAQ: FWLT) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Reiterated Outperform and $22 target at Credit Suisse.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. (NASDAQ: JBHT) Started as Positive at Susquehanna.
Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) Started as Positive at Susquehanna.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) Started as Positive at Susquehanna.
Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE: PCX) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) Reiterated Buy and raised target to $158 at BofA/ML.
3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP) Started as Positive at Susquehanna.
United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) Started as Outperform and $30 target at Credit Suisse.
VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) Raised to Buy and target raised to $12 from $6 at BofA/ML (full details).
Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) Started as Neutral at Janney.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: ACI, ALTR, CBOE, CRM, FWLT, GE, JBHT, KSU, MMM, NFLX, NSC, PCX, UNP, URI, VVUS, XLNX

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (CADX, COH, DELL, HTE, JWN, RIMM, S, STP, URI, VRSK)

247wallst — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:13:25 +0000

These are the top ten analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen from Wall Street research calls early this Monday:

Cadence Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CADX) Cut to Perform at Oppenheimer.
Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) Started as Buy with $19 target at Goldman Sachs.
Harvest Energy (NYSE: HTE) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) Started as Hold, $66 target, at Auriga.
Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE: STP) Raised to Neutral (from Underweight) at HSBC.
United Rentals (NYSE: URI) Raised to Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ: VRSK) Started as In-Line at Fox-Pitt; Started as Market Perform at KBW.

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week to be notified of key analyst calls, top early morning day trader alerts, along with news of IPO’s, key offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls, Technology Companies, Trading Alert Tagged: CADX, COH, DELL, HTE, JWN, RIMM, S, STP, URI, VRSK

Major Buybacks This Week (CCOI, FOSL, HIG, KALU, OSG, URI, UTX)

247wallst — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:02:33 +0000

As we have pointed out over and over, it appears that buyback announcements are on the decline in a serious way as far as "new buyback plans" being announced. Ultimately we believe that the buyback paces coming to a crawl is for several factors, with the main issues being the need of cash and the embedded insurance policy this gives companies who want to shore up their capital during a weak economy. We did not count the smaller buyback announcements, but these are the larger ones we saw this week (alphabetically rather than chronologically):

Cogent Communication (NASDAQ: CCOI) completed its prior plan and added another $50 million to its buyback machine. The market cap is about $682 million.

Fossil Inc. (NASDAQ: FOSL) announced that it would repurchase some 2 million shares, or roughly 3% of its shares outstanding.

Hartford Financial Services (NYSE: HIG) added $1 Billion to its prior plan, and its market cap is nearly $23 Billion.

Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (NASDAQ: KALU) is one of the old ones that would be easy to overlook or forget about. But the company raised its dividend and announced a $75 million share repurchase program. This is only about 1.1 to 1.2 million shares, but when you compare it to the $1.3 Billion market cap and the 390,000 share average daily volume it large on a percentage basis.

Overseas Shipholding (NYSE: OSG) replaced its prior buyback plan with a $250 million stock buyback announcement, and it raised its dividend too. This represents more than 3 million shares at current prices and compares to about a $2.4 Billion market cap.

The big kahuna buyback came from United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) announced it was doing a swap and buyback of some 27.16 million shares. This represents close to 31% of its entire outstanding share count.

United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) was perhaps the largest buyback from the largest company this week. The company announced it would buy back up to 60 million shares as a replacement to its prior plan. Based on a near-$70 price, this implies a sum of up to $4.2 Billion if prices remained static. This has roughly 973 million shares outstanding.

Jon C. Ogg
June 13, 2008

United Rentals Major Share Tender (URI)

247wallst — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:35:26 +0000

United Rentals Inc. (NYSE: URI) is seeing shares surge in pre-market trading. It seems it is doing what the old private equity acquisition couldn’t do. It isn’t going private, but it is cleaning up its books and retiring a large portion of its common stock and preferred shares.

The company is tendering to repurchase up to 27,160,000 shares of common stock through a modified dutch auction at a price not less than $22.00 and not greater than $25.00. Shares closed at $19.50 yesterday and its 52-week trading range is $14.83 to $34.98.

The number of shares to be repurchased in the tender offer represents approximately 31.4% of the total outstanding number of shares. If fully subscribed, the total purchase price for the common stock would be roughly $679 million.

The company plans to commence the tender offer within the next week and will keep the offer open for at least 20 business days.

It has also repurchased all of its outstanding Series C preferred stock and Series D preferred stock, in which a substantial majority was held by Apollo Investment Fund. The total purchase price for the preferred stock is approximately $679 million.

As part of this financing United Rentals entered into a new $1.25 Billion asset-based loan facility yesterday and it repaid approximately $464 million outstanding under its former revolving credit facility and term loan.

Shares are up over 15% at $22.61 right after the open.

You can join our open email distribution list to hear about other developments in IPO’s, secondary financings, spin-offs, mergers, and other special situations.

Jon Ogg
June 10, 2008

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (ADBE, ATI, CAT, HOTT, MOT, NWAC, UAUA, URI, VRSN, VMED)

247wallst — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:47:16 +0000

These are ten of the analyst calls we are focusing on this Thursday morning:

Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) cut to Neutral at Cowen & Co.
Allegheny Tech (NYSE: ATI) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.
Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) cut to Sell at UBS.
Hot Topic (NASDAQ: HOTT) Raised to Outperform from Market Perform at FBR.
Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Cut to Underperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.
Northwest Airlines (NASDAQ: NWAC) Raised to Overweight from Equalweight at Lehman.
UAL Corp. (NASDAQ: UAUA) raised to Overweight at Lehman Brothers
United Rentals (NYSE: URI) cut to Neutral at UBS.
VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.
Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Jon C. Ogg
June 5, 2008