Top Ten Weekly Recommendation, Target Price, Earnings Forecast Changes

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Just a note to begin this week's report:

Different stock brokers use different labels for their ratings but they all mean the same thing. The ratings are directed toward equity portfolio managers (those who must hold equities) and the expressions Buy, Outperform and Overweight all imply a stock should be held in a greater proportion than its market weighting suggests; Hold, Neutral and Market Weight all imply a stock should be held as its market weighting suggests; and Sell, Underperform and Underweight all suggest a stock should be held at a proportion less than its market weight suggests.

To avoid confusion, FNArena equates all ratings into the three simple levels of Buy, Hold, Sell for the purpose of analysis (Broker Call reports actual ratings) and given the number of ratings changes last week, the same is true for this report.

Are global stock markets becoming toppy with newfound enthusiasm? Analysts in the US have begun to recommend reducing positions as the Dow toys with a new 52-week high and the eight brokers in the FNArena database last week implemented eighteen ratings downgrades to only five upgrades for Australian stocks. Market strength is not the sole explanation for every downgrade, but there is an undertone of overvaluation.

Let's begin with the upgrades.

Many an analyst was forced to concede over the course of 2011 that they'd been a bit premature in pricing in the opportunities available for New Zealand's dominant building material manufacturer Fletcher Building ((FBU)) post the Christchurch earthquake. Such opportunities were complimented by a belief the New Zealand (and to a lesser extent, Australian) housing markets had reached rock bottom. Christchurch continued to shake, the NZ market remained weak in general, FBU published a profit warning and Buy ratings were soon pulled back to Hold. But JP Morgan now believes FBU's time has come, and hence last week upgraded to Buy.

Most brokers already had Mermaid Marine ((MRM)) as a Buy but a solid share price run threatened to change that as MRM went about expanding its business of servicing offshore WA oil & gas operations. BA-Merrill Lynch nevertheless decided last week that MRM's valuation still offered upside given the strength of demand potential and thus joined the list of Buy raters.

UBS believes there are a number of different policy moves Toll Holdings ((TOL)) could implement in order to improve its earnings profile. With the Express division leading the near-term drive, and TOL trading at a 20% discount to peers, the analysts decided there was sufficient scope for an upgrade to Buy.

St Barbara ((SBM)) is an aspiring primary gold miner but has always been hampered by higher than average costs. This had been enough for Macquarie to rate SBM a Sell, but with scope for costs to now reduced, coupled with the broker's bullish outlook for the gold price, the analysts decided to move up to Hold.

Merrills made a similar move for Dulux ((DLX)). The analysts noted margins have improved for DLX more than had been expected in a weak building environment which otherwise reduces the demand for paint.

We move now to the downgrades.

Only three brokers in the database cover mineral processing equipment producer Ludowici ((LDW)) and last week both RBS and UBS downgraded the company to Hold. It seemed a no brainer – LDW received a takeover offer from FLSmidth representing a premium in excess of 100%.

Returning to prior suggestions of “toppiness”, four companies suffering downgrades last week were merely victims of their own success rather than anything untoward. With trading prices now running ahead of valuations, and despite ongoing potential for success, UBS downgraded high-flying resource sector servicing companies Ausenco ((AAX) and Monadelphous ((MND)). UBS provided the same reasoning for downgrading nickel miner Western Areas ((WSA)) to Sell, and Citi threw in a downgrade to Hold for WSA. Favourable growing conditions for Graincorp have also seen investors over-excited, and hence Citi took that stock down to Hold as well.

While resource sector construction is booming along in Australia, the same is not true for residential and commercial construction. Analysts have been anticipating a post-GFC rebound for some time now but over three years out there remains little sign. And the situation is little different in the US. Credit Suisse thus downgraded Boral ((BLD)) to Hold. CSR's building products are in higher demand in flood-ravaged Queensland, but a weak outlook for aluminium sees Merrills take the stock down to Sell. Merrills also sees mounting competition for Adelaide Brighton's ((ABC)) dominant cement business, and it has been downgraded to Hold.

If you're not building houses then nor are you filling them with household gadgets and cleaners and so forth. GUD Holdings ((GUD)) has a strong balance sheet and has increased its dividend but with little in the way of near-term catalysts, Credit Suisse has downgraded to Hold.

The world is swept up in the success of Australia's resource boom and the recent return to positive commodity prices, but the latest round of production reports emphasises the fact that mining is based on resource estimates and is impacted heavily by everything from rising costs to bad weather. Citi had suspected that Alacer Gold's ((AQG)) production targets were a bit ambitious and was proved correct before downgrading AQG to Neutral. Mirabela Nickel ((MBN)) suffered a similar fate from Deutsche Bank (to Sell) when production guidance was cut and costs were more than expected. Rail transport issues have become a problem for Mt Gibson ((MGX)) iron, prompting a downgrade to Hold from RBS, and disappointing 2012 production guidance from PanAust ((PNA)) saw Merrills drop its rating to Sell. Macquaire took Whitehaven Coal ((WHC)) down to Hold on weak production but notes the stock is still wrapped up in takeover speculation.

Finally, Citi noted that LNG darling Oil Search ((OSH)) posted greater recoveries than expected in the quarter but this was due to inventory run-down. With inventories needing to be rebuilt, and the analysts preferring PNG partner Santos ((STO)) anyway, Citi downgraded to Hold.

Total Recommendations	Recommendation Changes
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