Verizon Falls, Varian Lowers Estimates

123jump.com Staff
06 Jan, 2009
New York City

Verizon and AT&T declined on an analyst downgrade. Barnes & Noble rose after private equity stake disclosure in the bookseller. Best Buy rose on analyst upgrade. Varian Semi lowered revenue estimate for the first quarter.

[R]3:00PM New York – Verizon and AT&T declined on an analyst downgrade. Barnes & Noble rose after private equity stake disclosure in the bookseller. Best Buy rose on analyst upgrade. Varian Semi lowered revenue estimate for the first quarter.[/R]

AT&T Inc ((T)) lost 4% or $1.19 to $28.23 after the largest U.S. mobile-phone carrier Verizon was downgraded to “underperform” from “market perform” and AT&T to “market perform” from “outperform” at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Biogen Idec Inc ((BIIB)) fell 5.8% or $2.81 to $45.68 after the commercialization of therapies was downgraded to “neutral” from “overweight” at J.P. Morgan on Monday. The research note cited a challenging year for its multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri.

Barnes & Noble, Inc ((BKS)) added 8.3% or $1.28 to $16.60 after Yucaipa Cos, a private equity firm controlled by billionaire Ron Burkle, said on Friday it had acquired an 8.3% stake in the bookseller.

Best Buy Co., Inc ((BBY)) rose 3.3% or 98 cents to $30.00 after the largest U.S. electronics retailer was raised to “buy” from “neutral” by analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc ((CBG)) declined 4.9% or 22 cents to $4.26 and the commercial real estate services firm said that Vietnam’s real estate prices will extend declines in 2009 as developers struggle to arrange financing.

IntercontinentalExchange, Inc ((ICE)) dropped 8.3% or $7.03 to $77.54 an operator of futures exchanges announced today that Intelligence Press, Inc. granted ICE exclusive right to license the natural gas indices published in the Natural Gas Intelligence newsletters for exchange settlement and clearing beginning May 1, 2009. The exchange operator was also downgraded by an analyst.

JPMorgan Chase & Co ((JPM)) slid 3.1% or 98 cents to $30.37 after the Deutsche Bank said the biggest issue that the U.S. banks will face in 2009 is commercial loan losses and may nearly double in the year from a year ago.

Questar Corporation ((STR)) rose 5.9% or $2.04 to $36.22 after the oil and gas driller was the subject of media speculation.

Southern Copper Corporation ((PCU)) lost 3.1% or 10 cents to $18.22 after the world’s seventh-largest producer of the metal was downgraded at Citigroup to “buy” to “hold.”

Teradyne, Inc ((TER)) rose 12.8% or 60 cents to $5.26 after the chip-testing equipment maker was raised to “overweight” from “equal weight” at Barclays plc.

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc ((VSEA)) fell 3.0% or 56 cents to $18.05 after the maker of chip-production equipment lowered first quarter revenue estimate to between $105 and $110 million from the previous range of $115.0 million to $125.0 million. According to Reuters Estimates, analysts on average are expecting the company to report revenues of $135 million.

Verizon Communications Inc ((VZ)) plunged 4.8% or $1.69 to $32.95 after the providing communication services was downgraded from “Market Perform” to “underperform” at Sanford Bernstein and price target reduced to $27 from $32.