Top Stocks Upgrades-Downgrades June 25, 2013

UPGRADES

• Marvell Technology Group LTD. (MRVL) upgraded to Buy from hold at Brean Captial – Target $13
• TE Connectivity (TEL) upgraded to Conviction buy from Buy at Goldman Sachs – Target $53

DOWNGRADES

• Allergan Inc. (AGN) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo – Target $87
• Netflix (NFLX) downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Bernstein – Target $180

NEW COVERAGE

• Michael Kors (KORS) initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank – Target $70
• Lululemon (LULU) intiated with a Hold at Deutsche Bank – Target $65
• Nike (NKE) initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank – Target $68

HEADLINES

Major global securities and investment banking firm Jeffries (JEF) has confirmed reports of it’s involvement with Carl Icahn’s share offer for Dell (DELL). The bank will provide financing for Icahn’s $14-a-share offer by launching a $5.2 loan package. Dell investor Carl Icahn will also finance the proposed offer with $7.5B of cash from Dell’s balance sheet and $2.9B from the tech giant’s sale of receivables.

Chinese shares (FXI) rallied late in the day from an earlier plummet to close the trading day at only -0.2%. The Chinese shares were down 5.8% early in the day, however rumors that the People’s Bank of China would ease its tough liquidity stance trimmed the losses late in the day.

Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) have announced a partnership that will let customers run Oracle software including Java, Oracle Database, and Oracle WebLogic on Windows Server Hyper-V and in Windows Azure. Microsoft will offer Java, Oracel Database and Oracle WebLogic Server to Windows Azure customers, and Oracle is making Oracle Linux available to Windows Azure customers as part of this partnership. This deal has potential to intensify the competition on Vmware (VMW) and IBM (IBM) offerings.

Along with Chinese shares that have been soothed by a central bank, US stock futures and European shares have risen today, while bond markets remain fairly tame. The FTSEurofirst index was up 0.7 percent, having shed 5.5 percent in the last three sessions due to expected curbing of U.S. Monetary stimulus and a spike in Chinese interbank rates. China’s central bank claimed on tuesday that it would guide rates to reasonable levels, which aided in autos, banking and mining shares rise 1.3-2 percent. The trend for European shares remained negative however, and strategist at ETX Capital Ishaq Siddiqi claims his clients were cashing in on their short positions.