UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Downgrades CNH Global; Lowers PT

According to a research report published earlier today, Piper Jaffray downgrades CNH Global

from Overweight to Neutral, and lowers PT from $52 to $51. In the report, Piper Jaffray commented, "We are downgrading shares of CNH from Overweight to Neutral as we believe moderating growth will limit valuation multiple expansion over the course of the next year. There were several positives in CNH's 1Q results – and we believe management's guidance is likely to prove conservative – however, we believe visibility is much cloudier as we look ahead to 2013. We are forecasting sales and EPS to be roughly flat in 2013. While this projection represents outperformance relative to our modeling on DE and AGCO, we believe that lower visibility and the prospect of weaker industry volumes will constrain valuations." CNH Global closed yesterday at $45.58.