Weekly Reports | 10:00 AM
Weekly update on stockbroker recommendation, target price, and earnings forecast changes.
By Mark Woodruff
Guide:
The FNArena database tabulates the views of seven major Australian and international stockbrokers: Citi, Bell Potter, Macquarie, Morgan Stanley, Morgans, Ord Minnett, 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 June 8 to Friday June 12, 2026
Total Upgrades: 3
Total Downgrades: 6
Net Ratings Breakdown: Buy 66.20%; Hold 27.17%; Sell 6.63%
For the shortened week ending Friday, June 12, 2026, FNArena recorded three upgrades and six downgrades in ratings for individual ASX-listed stocks from seven brokers monitored daily.
Online property advertiser and owner of realestate.com.au REA Group received two rating downgrades by separate brokers.
UBS highlighted the possibility of the Australian housing market weakening “materially” due to the lagged effect of interest rate hikes, as well as the Budget measures.
As explained further in https://fnarena.com/index.php/2026/06/10/treasure-chest-rea-group-2/, Bell Potter sees average dwelling prices as a more important leading indicator for residential revenue, which contributes around 70% of REA’s group revenue.
Although management has some scope to manage operating costs, Bell Potter suggests falling average dwelling prices will have a negative impact on volumes and most probably group EPS.
Bell Potter is the only one to set a new price target (marginally) below the current share price.
Declines in average target prices (valuations) outweigh increases in the tables below, while falls in average earnings forecasts are of a greater magnitude than positive adjustments.
Specialty chemicals company Alpha HPA’s target fell by -23%, as Ord Minnett initiated coverage with a lower target than Macquarie and Bell Potter.
Ord Minnett highlighted the company's proprietary solvent extraction technology, which is expected to deliver high-purity alumina (HPA) at low operating costs and with a lower carbon footprint than incumbent producers'.
HPA is a chemical used for high tech applications including lithium-ion batteries and semiconductors.
A 10ktpa plant in Gladstone to produce HPA, currently under construction by Alpha HPA, is scheduled for completion in late 2027.
Resuming coverage last week, Macquarie pointed to “a compelling opportunity for long-term investors with exposure to the rapidly scaling AI theme and prospect for healthy returns”.
This broker highlighted Alpha's product is entering the market at an opportune time, with high-purity alumina emerging as the preferred ceramic for chip packaging substrates due to its superior thermal performance, offering up to 30 times the conductivity of incumbent silica.
Peter Warren Automotive and Lendlease Group suffered declines in consensus targets of -17% and -10%, respectively.
Ord Minnett lowered its target for Peter Warren by -80c to $1.20 after management delivered a weaker-than-expected trading update on June 1.
This disappointment reflected a sharp shift in consumer demand driven by higher fuel prices, rising interest rates and ongoing cost-of-living pressures, explained the broker.
Customers are increasingly favouring smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, reducing sales of higher-margin models.
Rapid changes in buying patterns were also noted (disrupting vehicle availability and delivery schedules), creating additional earnings headwinds.
Lendlease announced a rise in its FY26 underlying gearing ratio, prompting Ord Minnett to lift its forecast by 10.3 percentage points to 35.7%.
This broker’s funds from operations forecasts were lowered by -75.9% for FY27 and by -8.5% for FY28.
More positively, Citi points out the company has secured $4.7bn of development project wins and $6.5bn of construction contract wins in FY26 year-to-date, supporting future earnings and backlog growth.
Both Lendlease and Peter Warren also appear second and third for negative change to earnings forecasts, behind Synlait Milk’s -73% downgrade.
Synlait’s June 9 trading update revealed a net loss of -NZ$12m for January to April 2026. Bell Potter adds that loss includes an estimated profit from the sale of the company’s North Island site for NZ$21m.
While this broker lowered its FY26 earnings forecast by -57%, investors are reminded the numbers involved are small.
Bell Potter's price target fell to 38.5c from 42c and the Hold rating was left unchanged.
On the flipside, Sims, one of the world’s largest metal recycling and circular economy companies, heads up the week's table for positive change to targets with a 9% rise after Macquarie raised its target to $31.90 from $22.30. The company’s average earnings forecast increased by 10%.
The earnings contribution from the IT asset recovery and re-sale business Sims Lifecycle Services (SLS) should remain resilient, according to Macquarie, with growth in services and geographic expansion.
Macquarie forecasts higher-for-longer memory prices for Double Data Rate 4 (DDR4), the fourth-generation DRAM memory standard used in computers, servers and data centres.
The broker also remains positive on the outlook for the Metals division, citing favourable conditions across both ferrous and non-ferrous markets.
Contractor SRG Global received a 9% boost to its average target price last week after Morgans raised its target by $1.00 to $4.20.
The broker was reacting to upgraded FY26 guidance on June 2 and the issuance of new FY27 guidance after management secured $1.85bn of contracts with blue chip clients across a diverse range of sectors.
Management noted “the company is exceptionally well positioned to continue to deliver long-term sustainable growth”.
After leading the table the previous week for the largest increase in average target price, network-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service provider Megaport tops this week's list for earnings upgrades, with average forecasts rising 35%.
Morgans increased its FY27 and FY28 earnings forecasts for Megaport by 88% and 218%, respectively, and raised its target to $21.00 from $15.50.
These changes follow management’s expansion into AI infrastructure from network connectivity, supported by recent contract wins and an $809m capital raising.
Morgans highlights Megaport's growing exposure to AI inference, with its communications network and data centre footprint providing a competitive advantage in delivering integrated connectivity, CPU and GPU services.
Customers typically spend substantially more on compute than connectivity solutions, Morgans noted.
The broker downgraded its rating to Accumulate from Buy following an around 90% share price rally in the last month.
Both Megaport and SRG Global featured in last week's Rudi's View article, highlighting strategic operational shifts aimed at increasing exposure to strong demand generated by the data centre supercycle.
For more details see https://fnarena.com/index.php/2026/06/10/rudis-view-market-momentum-investor-dilemmas/
Management at SRG recently highlighted data centres alongside water, energy, resources, defence, transport and ports as key growth sectors. Specifically for data centres, the company has won business connected to NextDC via the Malaga data centre in Perth.
Speaking of AI-related exposures, FNArena also published a story on how management at Wesfarmers intends to raise productivity via utilising AI tools at https://fnarena.com/index.php/2026/06/12/ai-helps-accelerate-wesfarmers-ambitions/.
Wesfarmers appears in both the positive change to average target and forecasts tables below.
Total Buy ratings remain historically elevated at 66.37%, with Sell ratings at just 6.59%, leaving 27.05% on Neutral/Hold.
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