Banks felt the wrath of brokers on Monday as the effects of last week’s EU referendum result continue to rumble on.
Jefferies International said that, following the Brexit vote, it moves “to a slow growth/ modestly recessionary scenario for the UK banks”, while JP Morgan Cazenove also re-confirmed its “cautious banking sector view”.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE:RBS) was downgraded by four brokers, with Jefferies, Barclays Capital, RBC Capital Markets and JP Morgan Cazenove all revising their assessments of the stock.
Jefferies moved RBS to a ‘hold’ recommendation from ‘buy’; Barclays downgraded the stock from ‘equal weight’ to ‘underweight’; while JP Morgan Cazenove also lowered its rating to ‘underweight’ from ‘neutral’.
RBC Capital Markets was perhaps the most brutal of the four, downgrading RBS to ‘underperform’ from ‘outperform’, while setting a target price of 165p, some 40p below this morning’s opening price.
Another bank, this time Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS), was downgraded by JP Morgan Cazenove from ‘overweight’ to ‘neutral, while Jefferies International lowered the stock from a ‘buy’ recommendation to ‘underperform’.
Jefferies also slashed its target price for the stock from 287p down to 115p, saying the bank’s earnings power has been “substantially diminished” by the UK’s vote in favour Brexit.
Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE:LYG) was moved down to an ‘equal weight’ rating from ‘overweight’ by Barclays Capital, while the stock was also downgraded by JP Morgan Cazenove to ‘neutral’ from ‘overweight’.
Elsewhere, SeaWorld Entertainment Inc (NYSE:SEAS) has had its stock price target cut to $16 from $18 at Wedbush Securities, while Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) has been downgraded by Citigroup to a ‘neutral’ rating from ‘buy’.
On a more positive note, Raymond James has upgraded both Endeavour Silver Corp (NYSE:EXK) and Coeur Mining Inc (NYSE:CDE) to an ‘outperform’ rating from ‘market perform’.