UPDATE: Goldman Sachs Downgrades Weyerhaeuser to Neutral, Reiterates $27 PT

In a report published Friday, Goldman Sachs Group downgraded its rating on Weyerhaeuser WY from Buy to Neutral, and reiterated its $27.00 price target. Goldman Sachs noted, “We downgrade WY to Neutral (from CL-Buy) as we see less upside (6%) to our 12-month price target for WY vs. our Buy-rated names – RKT, UFS, BZ (22%, on average) – within our Paper & Forest Products coverage. While we continue to believe that US housing is in a nascent stage of recovery and expect housing starts to be improve by an 18% CAGR through 2014, we are more cautious on the near term-trading environment for WY given that the shares are up 37% YTD (vs. S&P 500 14%) and wood product prices have historically softened in 4Q along with seasonally slower home building activity (key end-market) during the winter months. We would get more constructive on the shares if US housing recovers at a faster pace than we currently forecast, and/or the stock pulled back to more compelling valuation levels.” Weyerhaeuser closed on Thursday at $25.50.