UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Downgrades Amyris to Neutral

Piper Jaffray lowers its rating on Amyris (NASDAQ: AMRS) to Neutral from Overweight and reduces its price target significantly to $11 from $26 as the company's diesel end market looks much softer than expected.

Piper Jaffray notes, "Yesterday, we met with representatives from the Agroenergia department within Brazil's influential Embrapa organization. Their message was clear that government programs for expanding domestic biodiesel production are focused on increasing asset utilization while diversifying the feedstock sources. Importantly, ethanol production that has fallen short of mandates remains a key concern for policy makers. Given the sensitivity of diminishing ethanol production and the misalignment of farnesene-based diesel with government directives, we are convinced that Amyris' end market demand for diesel will be far softer than originally expected."

AMRS closed at $9.60 a share yesterday.