Piper Jaffray Downgrades National CineMedia

Piper Jaffray is out with a research report on National CineMedia

and is downgrading shares to Neutral from Overweight, and is lowering its price target to $15. In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "We are downgrading NCMI to Neutral from OW. Concerns over the health of the scatter ad market lead us to reduce our 4Q forecast as well as 2012. Management announced after the close revised guidance, maintaining 3Q but hacking 4Q by approx. 25% (from $143m to $108m). The sheer magnitude of the deceleration is likely to alarm investors. The comments will likely rattle other ad-based names, and though other names have less exposure to scatter, they are under review. While the weakness may in fact be temporary, we think investors are better served to move to the sidelines for now until the top line stabilizes. We are cutting our 2011 EPS to $0.74 from $0.57 and our 2012 EPS to $0.48 from $0.87. Target goes from $23 to $15." Shares of NCMI lost $3.55 yesterday in after-hours to close at $11.20, a loss of 24.07%.