Best of the Brokers for 24 November 2015
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Analysts at Numis have revised their expectations for Close Brothers Group, lowering their earnings per share forecasts for the specialist financial services firm by 5.8 per cent for this year and a similar amount for next year off the back of the firm’s third-quarter trading update. Changing their recommendation from “buy” to “add”, the Numis team said the downgrade “primarily relates to the securities business”, where they “expect income per bargain to be weak”.
Barclays Capital analysts have cut Evraz to an “underweight” rating from an “equal weight” rating, slashing their target share price from 100p to 50p. The FTSE 250 multinational steel-making and mining company, which operates mainly in Russia, but also has operations in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Italy among other countries, has seen its share price fall by more than 54 per cent since April of this year.
Investec analysts have changed their recommendation for the Belfast-based Kainos Group from “buy” to “hold” on the same day that the IT company reported £6.8m in pre-tax profit for the first half of the year. It was the firm’s first set of results since its initial public offering (IPO) in July. Investec’s team said it was a strong set of results for the firm, but they are “conscious of the digital services gross margin mix and the upcoming Government Spending Review”.