UPDATE: Stifel Nicolaus Downgrades Rent-A-Center to Hold on Slowing Business

Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Rent-A-Center

from Buy to Hold and removed the price target of $42.00. Stifel Nicolaus commented, "We are downgrading Rent-A-Center from Buy to Hold as we feel that some of the underlying assumptions to our thesis have now changed. … Rent-A-Center's core business disappointed in 2012 and should be somewhat challenged in the first half of 2013, in our view. The trend in the core business has been difficult over the last two quarters despite the units/agreement and average ticket metrics being up y/y in Q4, the company's total portfolio is still down after the large increase in EPOs in 2012. We would expect the core business profit in 2013 to be down slightly from 2012 although it should be slight." Rent-A-Center closed at $37.28 on Tuesday.