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(Sharecast News) - Shore Capital has cut its rating for JD Sports Fashion from 'buy' to 'hold', citing a tough athleisure market and weak consumer backdrop.
The downgrade came after last week's third-quarter trading update from the sports apparel and footwear retailer, which "underscored the depth of the current trading headwinds", according to Shore Capital.
New store openings and refreshes were supporting headline revenue growth - total third-quarter sales were up 8.1% at constant currency - though like-for-like sales were down 1.7%, falling across three of its four major regions.
As such, the company guided to full-year pre-tax profits at the lower end of the 853mm-888m consensus range.
"The lack of LFL momentum is limiting the group's ability to extract operating efficiencies and as labour and operating costs rise the company is also experiencing margin contraction," Shore Capital said. "While the valuation for JD remains highly attractive, particularly from a cash generation and returns perspective, given another cut to our forecasts, we today cut our outlook to Hold until we have clearer visibility around a return to a more stable and then, hopefully, positive earnings trajectory."
Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on housebuilder Berkeley at 'sell' on Monday as it detailed a constructive outlook for UK housebuilders.
Goldman Sachs started Berkeley with a 3,714p price target and pointed to constrained medium-term earnings growth given the low viability of residential London development, which was burdened by slower house price growth, more regulation and low affordability.
It also said Berkeley's Build to Rent strategy will take time to contribute to earnings, with capital recycling also taking longer.
Elsewhere in the note, GS started coverage of Barratt Redrow, Persimmon and Vistry at 'buy' with price targets of 449p, 1,446p and 731p, respectively.
Analysts at Canaccord Genuity lowered their target price on software firm Cerillion from 2,350p to 2,250p on Monday, after the group's October update pointed to a second-half growth rebound, as well as some sales slippage into full-year 2026.
Canaccord Genuity updated its estimates to reflect Cerillion's lower FY25 revenue base, with the top-line result indicated that second-half sales grew by 15% after falling by 7% in the first half, helped by a strong performance in the software division.
However, Canaccord left its profit forecasts largely unchanged, but said the recent de-rating in UK software peers triggered "a small reduction" in its target price, based on a blend of a calendar year price-to-earnings ratio of 30x and its bull case net present value.
The Canadian bank expects growth to re-accelerate in FY26 to +15%, assuming Cerillion continues on its trajectory of securing further large contracts with global Tier 1 and 2 telecommunications firm.
"Longer-term, we continue to believe Cerillion will remain in share gain mode of the ~$28bn OSS BSS TAM (ex CCaaS) with its GenAI-enhanced out-of-thebox software offering," said Canaccord. "As detailed in our deep-dive, this could potentially drive a 15% sales CAGR and the stock to ~34 or 2.5x from current levels, by the end of the decade."