Thursday's London broker comment corner; Cookson, GlaxoSmithKline, UBS and HSBC get rated
Proactive Investors brings you the buzz from the brokers, with a wrap of overnight comment from some of the biggest names in the London square mile.
From London overnight: Deutsche Bank has upgraded materials specialist Cookson (LON:CKSN) to 'buy' from hold and upped the target price to 800 pence from 600 pence.
The firm's first half results are due out on February 27.
"In a sector which we think is now quite fully valued, we find Cookson to be notably inexpensive," said analyst Peter Reilly in a note.
Elsewhere, Berenberg has upgraded GlaxoSmithKline (LON:GSK) to 'buy' from 'hold' and targets a price of £16.40 for the shares.
"The company has absorbed the loss of Avandia, and its associated legal costs, and should deliver solid mid-single digit growth. We also see improving pipeline prospects with several important data sets this
year," Berenberg said.
Lloyds (LON:LLOY) is the subject of a note with an unchanged 'buy' rating from Swiss bank UBS today. Lloyds will release results on February 24 (Friday).
"Lloyds delivered a profit of £547m in Q3 excluding fair value unwind, the first profit on this basis since Q1 2010. We forecast a modest loss (£80m) on a similar basis in Q4," said UBS.
It has a 12 month price target price on Lloyds of 55 pence a share.
Nomura has a 'buy' rating on another bank HSBC (LON:HSBA) and says while it sees downgrade risk for banks generally, it believes the risk is lower than for HSBC.
Nomura has a target price of 725 pence for the bank's shares.
"Our investment case for HSBC is built around our preference for growing emerging markets over deleveraging western-developed economies," said analyst Robert Law.
Among the things to look out for in 2012, said the analyst, were growth trends and an expected dividend of 38 pence relative to consensus of 40 pence.
In other broker coverage, Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) is rated a 'buy' by Swiss bank UBS, which targets a price of 1640 pence for the stock.
The note comes after the firm released the results from the Jupiter Well, offshore Sierra Leone, which UBS said showed hydrocarbons but not on the scale that may have reinvigorated market sentiment on Tullow's West Africa exploration.
In the small caps, broker Seymour Pierce described Independent Resources' (LON:IRG) receipt of a long awaited approval for its Rivara underground gas storage facility in Italy as "positive".
The AIM-quoted company said it now hoped a licence could be granted so it could sink its planned appraisal wells, therefore paving the way towards securing the gas supply in a way Italian Industry has been calling for.
Seymour Pierce analyst Sam Wahab said: "We feel this is a positive development for the company, however it is one (albeit important) element of a long term strategy to construct the facility and ultimately provide additional security of gas supply in Italy," said the broker, which rates the stock a buy, targeting a price of 67 pence (current price: 54.5 pence).
Elsewhere, broker Panmure repeated its 'buy' rating on Horizonte Minerals (LON:HZM), targeting a price of 25 pence.
The company said today it was confident of the potential for its Araguaia nickel project in Brazil even if demand for the metal stays flat.
Araguaia has an indicated resource of 39.3 million tonnes grading 1.39% nickel and an inferred resource of 60.9 million tonnes averaging 1.22% nickel.
"The statement reiterates the progress made by the company through 2011 – all of which was previously announced. The next big news for Horizonte will be the results from the preliminary metallurgical tests followed by the Preliminary Economic Assessment in Q2," said Panmure.
Meanwhile, Rambler Metals and Mining (LON:RMM, CVE:RAB) today updated investors on activities at its flagship Ming mine, where it says 5,000 ounces of gold have been poured so far.
In today's update, the company also revealed that latest exploration drilling in the 1806 zone had uncovered potential for new high grade mineralisation, with an intersection of 278 grammes per tonne (g/t) uncut gold over 2.6 metres
In a note, Asa Bridle, of broker Seymour Pierce, said: "Rambler draws ever closer to the critical turning point in its evolution of becoming a copper concentrate producer."
The analyst noted that of particular interest was the firm's discovery of new visible gold intersections during drilling of the 1806 zone and also encouraging copper grades in development sampling of the 1807 zone.
"As the management team continue to derisk the project through sustained gold production and most importantly the start of copper production later this year, we would expect the stock to be re-rated accordingly," said Bridle.
Seymour Pierce rates the stock a 'buy' and targets a price of 62 pence (current price: 32 pence).
