Plumbers’ merchant and heating supplies firm Wolseley (LON:WOS) was feeling a warm glow on Wednesday as it received an upgrade from broker heavyweight JP Morgan Cazenove.
It lifted the stock to 'overweight' from 'neutral' and punted up the target price 700p to 4,800p.
German bank Berenberg was also upbeat on the group, which owns Plumb Center, pushing its target to 4,600p from 4,300p and repeating a 'buy'.
JP Morgan said its upgrade was due to the broker's "increasing faith" in the group’s ability to drive year-on-year margin expansion, on a long-term basis, through "continued operational improvements and greater leverage of its scale".
It has also added Wolseley to its Analyst Focus List.
Elsewhere, mobile phone giant Vodafone (LON:VOD) shares slipped by around the same amount as it got a thumbs down from Goldman Sachs.
The US heavyweight moved the stock to 'neutral' from 'buy' and lowered the target price to 250p from 275p.
UBS reiterated its ‘buy’ stance, however, as it analysed the possible benefits from a link with US group Liberty Global.
Potential synergies from a tie-up could range from £8.5bn to £25.4bn, all else being equal and come from cost savings, faster use of tax assets and a re-rating to a cable operator earnings multiple for the combined group.
In share price terms, this could be worth to between 32-96p per Vodafone share if all of it came through.
In the longer term, UBS suggests it would make sense for Vodafone to acquire Liberty Global and be less reliant on the credit markets for financing.
JP Morgan has lifted its price target on construction firm Carillion (LON:CLLN), which issued a pre-close first half update yesterday.
The target goes to 355p from 305p and the rating is maintained at 'neutral'
Analyst Emily Biddulph said the statement confirmed that the group remains on track for full year 2015 estimates with a trend of strong revenue growth (to be more marked in the first half of the financial year) offset by previously flagged margin pressures.
"We leave our estimates unchanged but increase our Dec-16 PT to 355p on higher peer group multiples," she said.
Meanwhile, mining titan Anglo American (LON:AAL) was atop the Footsie on Wednesday as Credit Suisse boosted its rating on the shares to 'outperform' from 'neutral'. The target was kept at 1,350p.
In contrast Barclays lowered its target on the shares to 780p from 950p and repeated an 'underweight' stance.
Mariana Resources (LON:MARL) received plaudits today for the start of exploration at two projects in Chile.
Financier Asset Chile is putting up the cash and the earn-in alleviates Mariana’s funding commitments on the properties, whilst the company retains a minimum 50% interest and control through operatorship said RFC Ambrian.