Upgrades: Keefe Bruyette upgrades T. Rowe Price (TROW 31.47) to Outperform from Market Perform... Keefe Bruyette upgrades Lender Processing (LPS 24.16) to Outperform from Market Perform... J.P Morgan upgrades Prudential (PUK 9.20) to Overweight from Neutral. Downgrades: Keefe Bruyette downgrades Old Second Bancorp (OSBC 18.50) to Underperform from Market Perform... Merriman downgrades Rick's Cabaret Int'l (RICK 6.60) to Neutral from Buy, as they are concerned about trends at the recently-acquired Las Vegas club as well as clubs in second-tier markets and believe the stock/credit markets as well as political uncertainty could cause some acquisition hesitation by management until visibility on both fronts improves... Citigroup downgrades Alumina (AWC 5.11) to Hold from Buy... UBS downgrades U.S. Steel (X 34.68) to Sell from Buy... UBS downgrades Nortel (NT 1.23) to Neutral from Buy. Miscellaneous: Oppenheimer initiates Syniverse Holdings (SVR 15.18) with an Outperform and sets a $19 tgt, as they believe SVR is nicely positioned as rising mobile services penetration (~58% in 2008 rising to 80% in 2012), subscriber growth (~15%-30% in developing regions), and emerging next-gen hardware and applications drive mobile connections and wireless data.
Upgrades: Keefe Bruyette : Oppenheimer upgrades Juniper Networks (JNPR 16.50) to Outperform from Perform and sets a $22 tgt, as spending concerns are likely to linger near term yet believe the co has enough flexibility to deliver on earnings even in a highly constrained spending environment, expect cost controls along with aggressive share repurchases can offset any earnings downside to current '09 consensus, and believe JNPR has yet to see the full benefit of its strong product cycle... JP Morgan upgrades ChinaMobile (CHL 36.50) to Neutral from Underweight... Keefe, Bruyette upgrades Franklin Resources (BEN 55.48) to Outperform from Market Perform and maintains their $67 tgt, based on valuation... Keefe, Bruyette upgrades Greenhill (GHL 55.73) to Outperform from Market Perform and lowers their tgt to $72 from $78, following Q308 EPS that missed firm and consensus estimates and based on valuation... Keefe, Bruyette upgrades EMC Insurance (EMCI 19.10) to Market Perform from Underperform and lowers their tgt to $19 from $21, following normalized EPS (excluding catastrophe losses and reserve development) that exceeded firm normalized estimates... Baird upgrades Aqua America (WTR 14.67) to Outperform from Neutral and maintains their $19 tgt, based on valuation and believe earnings are at an inflection point following nearly three years of flattish results, with ROEs likely to trend higher following Q308 rate relief in PA, NJ and FL... Merrill Lynch upgrades Developers Diversified Realty (DDR 8.08) to Buy from Neutral.