Luxury fashion chain Burberry (LON:BBRY) received a target price chop from heavyweight broker Deutsche to start the week.
The rating is kept at 'hold' but the target price is moved to 1530p from 1750p. The current price is 1,370p.
Deutsche ruminates: "Growth has been easy to achieve in the past decade: store footprint, price, and mix have been the drivers to capture booming demand and mechanically grow profits.
"This was helped by demographics in China and emerging markets. Today, the luxury market is more competitive and crowded, demand has moderated, and consumers are less predictable."
The broker is also bearish on power utility and British Gas owner Centrica (LON:CNA), which is downgraded to 220p from 250p on the target price front. The rating is again 'hold'.
In a note on northern European utilities, the same broker also downgrades SSE's (LON:SSE) target price to 1400p from 1560p.
It notes the share price falls in the sector of the last three months are mostly "justified" in its view.
"Fossil prices may look unsustainably low but we believe cost deflation will limit a bounce back - we cut out commodity assumptions by c15%," said analyst Martin Brough.
US broker Citi however is more upbeat on online betting group Betfair (LON:BET), which shunted up the target price to 3500p from 2330p.
The call is 'buy'.
Supermarket Morrison's (LON:MRW) gets a lift from Bernstein today, which moved the shares to 'market perform' from 'underperform'.
To the smaller fry and IGas Energy (LON:IGAS) is at the forefront of the UK shale gas, according to broker Canaccord, a play, which it says has been boosted by the government.
Canaccord has a ‘speculative buy’ rating for IGas, and with a 55p price target the broker suggests some 175% upside to the current price of 20p.
“The renewed and clear government support for onshore shale gas exploration and its desire to see planning applications conducted within the defined timetable, provides a fillip for UK shale gas exploration after delays earlier this year,” said analyst Charlie Sharp.
Sticking to the theme, Independent Oil & Gas’s (LON:IOG) Skipper project is most important, according to VSA Capital, which today gives the AIM oiler a ‘buy’ rating.
With a price target of 70p, VSA analyst Marc Anis-Hanna suggests nearly 1,000% upside to IOG’s current price of 6.5p.
Success at Skipper accounts for 84% of the target, albeit the company is still working to fund the project and close its agreed acquisition of 50% of the project equity (to make it wholly owned).
IOG revealed last week that it had made strides towards completing the deal and drilling a key appraisal well, which could allow a field development process to begin.
Cantor today repeats a 'buy' on Amerisur Resources (LON:AMER) and has a target price of 43p (current price 43p) following its interim results to June 30, which showed average production of 4,524bopd on a realised price of US$49/bbl over the six months.
"The loss before tax was US$5.8m (H1/2014: profit of US$50.8m), and the company had a healthy cash position of US$55.6m with no debt," it noted.
Elsewhere, Amedeo Resources (LON:AMED) told investors today that the first order for a mobile jack-up drilling rig remains on schedule to be completed by the end of this year.
The investment company, with a stake in a Chinese rig building venture, this morning revealed first half losses narrowed considerably to US$15,000 from US$271,000. It comes as cash administration costs reduced to US$248,000 from US$453,000.
John Cummins, analyst at broker WH Ireland, says Amedeo’s results demonstrate a tight control of costs against the challenging market backdrop.
“Whilst end markets are likely to remain challenging for some time, we believe that Amedeo remains well positioned to benefit when the cycle turns,” he said in a note.