This morning, Wedbush Morgan downgraded shares of First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) from Buy to Neutral as margins for the company are expected to shrink next year. The firm expects the company to report minimal revenue growth next year and have reduced their 2010 EPS estimates to $5.43 per share. With the downgrade, Wedbush Morgan reduced its price target from $170 per share to $120.
Shares of First Solar plummetted Thursday morning, falling more than sixteen percent following the downgrade.
Wells Fargo downgraded shares of Gannett (NYSE:GCI) to Underperform as the firm does not expect the economic recovery to help the struggling newspaper company. Analysts at Wells Fargo expect advertising revenue to fall further in 2010, after declining almost thirty percent this year. With the downgrade, the firm lowered its valuation range to between $7 and $8 per share.
Investors were looking past the gloomy outlook from Wells Fargo this morning, as shares of Gannett were trading higher by more than three and a half percent.
And Wells Fargo also downgraded shares of Pharmaceutical Product Development (NASDAQ:PPDI) from Outperform to Market Perform as sales look to be weak over the next few quarters. The firm lowered its 2010 EPS estimates to $1.22 per share as analysts are looking for flat to minimal earnings growth for the forseeable future.
Shares of PPDI were trading modestly lower following the downgrade, off a little more than one half of one percent.
For MarketNewsVideo.com, I'm Sayoko Murase.
