Weekly Reports | Sep 08 2025
Weekly update on stockbroker recommendation, target price, and earnings forecast changes.
By Mark Woodruff
Guide:
The FNArena database tabulates the views of eight major Australian and international stockbrokers: Citi, Bell Potter, Macquarie, Morgan Stanley, Morgans, Ord Minnett, Shaw and Partners and UBS.
For the purpose of broker rating correlation, Outperform and Overweight ratings are grouped as Buy, Neutral is grouped with Hold and Underperform and Underweight are grouped as Sell to provide a Buy/Hold/Sell (B/H/S) ratio.
Ratings, consensus target price and forecast earnings tables are published at the bottom of this report.
Summary
Period: Monday September 1 to Friday September 5, 2025
Total Upgrades: 6
Total Downgrades: 10
Net Ratings Breakdown: Buy 58.46%; Hold 32.66%; Sell 8.88%
For the week ending Friday, September 5, 2025, FNArena tracked six upgrades and ten downgrades for ASX-listed companies from brokers monitored daily.
During results season, this article aims to provide commentary on the tables below while also complementing FNArena’s Corporate Results Monitor, which keeps track of all the beats, misses, and in-line results at https://fnarena.com/index.php/reporting_season/
In common with the Monitor, the positive change to average earnings table reflects earnings ‘beats’ for Southern Cross Media, Harvey Norman, and McMillan Shakespeare and ‘misses’ for IGO Ltd, South32, Lotus Resources, Nickel Industries, ReadyTech Holdings, and Inghams Group.
As was the case in the prior two weeks, the size of percentage rises in average target prices outweighed reductions.
Positive changes to average targets also reflected an earnings ‘beat’ by Tabcorp Holdings, while negative changes to targets reflect disappointments from ARN Media, EVT Ltd, and WiseTech Global.
Four of the ten upward revisions to targets align with results that beat expectations, while double this ratio of downward revisions corresponds to disappointments.
For the second week in a row, Nufarm appears in the earnings downgrade table below, this week at the top, after analysts at Citi and Morgans updated their research.
As explained in last week’s article, separate to reporting season, management at Nufarm (September year-end) issued a trading update where metrics came in below consensus across most measures.
While Crop Protection margins are expected to improve as lower cost-of-goods-sold combine with a gradual uplift in volumes, Citi remained cautious on Seed Technologies. It's thought the persistence of weak fish oil prices and the drag from an ongoing strategic review of this division once deemed full of promise will weigh.
Morgans noted holding over Omega-3 inventory means net debt is now materially higher than expected and far too high at three times earnings.
Unfortunately, the broker concluded, this will likely result in Nufarm selling the best part of the company (Seed Technologies) to reduce debt.
Despite FY25 results for Aeris Resources meeting market expectations, the company’s average FY26 earnings forecast fell by around -33% as new coverage by Morgans included lower forecasts than among its peers.
Aeris provides exposure to copper and gold through its cornerstone assets Tritton in NSW and Cracow in Queensland. Together, they delivered 42.2kt copper equivalent production in FY25, noted the analysts, and generate steady cash flow.
Exploration is central to the company’s strategy, explained Morgans, with spending to increase in FY26 across near-mine extensions and district-scale greenfield targets at Tritton, Cracow and Jaguar. Morgans begins with a 12-month target of 31c and a Speculative Buy rating.
Mineral Resources exceeded market expectations during the reporting season but appears in the earnings downgrade table, simply because Bell Potter’s entry in the database has now been excluded in the belief the broker no longer covers the stock.
At first glance, the positions of Pexa Group, Boss Energy, and Capricorn Metals in the earnings upgrade table appear at odds with their respective reporting of financials.
A change in Macquarie’s valuation method for Pexa Group resulted in a lift of the broker’s target to $17.30 from $14.72. This broker decided to look through weaker-than-expected results in the belief disappointing Digital results will incentivise management to divest these assets, allowing for greater focus on the core and value-driving PEXA platform.
Morgans, which upgraded Pexa to Accumulate from Hold, was also positive on International progress, with the UK platform build completed and full product launch due in the first half of FY26.
Using Boss Energy and Capricorn Metals as examples, it should be noted when looking at earnings forecasts, we are no longer comparing apples with apples, as some of the upward moves stem from brokers rolling forward their financial models to FY26 forecasts (companies having released FY25 financials).
Separate to the earnings disappointment for Pilbara Minerals in the prior week, Morgan Stanley raised its earnings forecasts for the company last week. The broker has a balanced view on lithium prices, with demand seen resilient for the rest of 2025.
Pilbara Minerals has a lot of expansion potential at Pilgangoora and Morgan Stanley expects production to improve and unit cost to fall after P1000 Project at its Pilgangoora lithium operation in Western Australia is commissioned.
Elsewhere, earnings forecasts for Genesis Minerals received a boost last week after Shaw and Partners raised its gold price forecasts for the years ahead.
Genesis Minerals is among the gold stocks under coverage expected to benefit most from rising gold prices, according to the analysts, who lifted the company’s target to $5.40 from $4.40 and upgraded to Buy, High Risk from Hold.
Genesis is also Macquarie’s top gold pick in the mid cap space.
This broker last week switched its large-cap gold preference to Outperform-rated Northern Star Resources away from Newmont Corp (now Neutral).
Underweight-rated Evolution Mining, whose shares have rallied 77% so far in 2025, is Macquarie’s third choice among large cap options.
Total Buy ratings in the database comprises 58.46% of the total, versus 32.66% on Neutral/Hold, while Sell ratings account for the remaining 8.88%.
The full story is for FNArena subscribers only. To read the full story plus enjoy a free two-week trial to our service SIGN UP HERE
If you already had your free trial, why not join as a paying subscriber? CLICK HERE