UPDATE: Hilliard Lyons Downgrades National Health Investors to Underperform

Hilliard Lyons has published a research report on National Health Investors NHI and has downgraded the company from Neutral to Underperform after the company's conference call. In the report, Hilliard Lyons writes, "NHI's conference call was a relatively benign event, with no major announcements. The company did discuss its acquisition pipeline, as well as outlook for 2012. Management initiated guidance for 2012 FFO from $3.02 to $3.10, with a middle number of $3.06, which happens to be below the annualized figure from Q4 (four times $0.77 or $3.08). We are pushing up our 2012 FFO estimate a little to $3.12 above the $3.06 consensus and management's guidance. We believe that management is being overly conservative in their expectations for the year, especially based on the company's large acquisition pipeline—we are projecting $120 million in acquisitions for the year, compared to just over $100 million in 2011." National Health Investors is currently trading down $1.04 from yesterday's $48.72 closing price.