BEST OF THE BROKERS
ITV
Nomura maintains a “neutral” recommendation of ITV and forecasts the television company to grow about 1.5 per cent ahead of 2009, partly because of growth from the World Cup this summer.
Nomura no longer expects a “big bang” statement on ITV’s strategy and instead expects an announcement in due course.
J SAINSBURY
RBS said it does not anticipate many surprises from Sainsbury’s full year results later this month, which should show good growth over the year. RBS expects Sainsbury’s to highlight that the short-term sales outlook remains tricky but that ongoing investments should enhance its growth prospects. It maintains a “buy” rating.
EDF
UBS upgrades a recommendation of EDF from “neutral” to “buy” and says that recent poor performance is not justified by fundamentals. UBS says, in its view, the French energy giant has one of the highest-quality pipelines among the green utilities, including solar projects. UBS gives EDF a target price of €38.