Oppenheimer Removes Rating On AMPH

Oppenheimer is removing it's rating for American Physicians Service Group

, as it believes that stock price movement and volume reflect positioning around the announced acquisition by ProAssurance (

) and no longer reflect investor views on the standalone company's operations. The intended transaction was announced on September 1, 2010. Prior to that time, average daily volume was about 18K shares. Excluding the 814K shares traded on 9/1, the average volume since has been around 60K shares, or about 3.3 times the previous average. As a result, Oppenheimer believes the stock price movement reflects expectations surrounding the announced acquisition, and not company fundamentals. The former rating was Outperform and price target (also removed today) was $31. AMPH shares are at $32.32