Liberum gets the red pen out for high fashion firm Burberry Group PLC (LON:BRBY) repeating a 'sell' stance on the shares and targeting 975p a share.
Shares tumbled in early trading on Tuesday, as it reported a decline in its wholesale and licensing arms for the second quarter.
Wholesale revenue was down an underlying 14% from a year earlier at £287mln. Licensing revenue, at £13mln, was down 54% on a year earlier on an underlying basis
On wholesale, Liberum said it expect the similar fate in the second half as US department stores remain depressed. Foreign exchange (FX) benefits aside, Burberry struggles to drive meaningful growth, the broker said.
Conversely, the same broker is very upbeat on house builder Bellway plc (LON:BWY), which today revealed a record annual performance and said trading had been resilient post the Brexit vote.
For the year to end July, pre-tax profit came in at £497.9mln against £354.2mln last year on revenues, which were almost 27% higher at £2.24bn.
The proposed total dividend per share has risen by 40.3% to 108.0p (2015: 77p).
Liberum rates shares a 'buy' and targets 3,125p.
"Bellway started the year with an order book of 4,644 homes, up 2% from the prior year, reflecting slower conditions in June and July around the referendum," it said.
"This grew to 6% ahead, year-on-year, by 4 October. The order book of 4,701 units represents around 50% of the volumes expected in the year to July 2017."
Elsewhere in brokerland, Macquarie repeats a 'hold' on Direct Line Insurance Group (LON:DLG) and pumps up the target price to 406p from 335p.
The same broker downgrades the target price on education publisher Pearson (LON:PSON) to 925p from 1025p but repeats an 'outperform' stance on the company.
Yesterday, the group warned customers had been running down high stock levels, which has been hitting sales, which were down 7% year-on-year in underlying terms in the first nine months of the year.
Sales declined 3% in headline terms, due to the strength of the dollar against sterling, but were off 10% on a constant exchange rates basis.