UPDATE: Stifel Nicolaus Downgrades Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance to Hold: Valuation

Stifel Nicolaus says it downgrades Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance

from Buy to Hold and removes its previous price target of $17 per share. Stifel Nicolaus comments, "We are downgrading Apollo shares from Buy to Hold after a strong performance year-to-date (26% total return vs. ~13.5% for the RMS) and with the shares within 5% of our previous target price. …We also believe that the company could have difficulty replicating the yield on its maturing CMBS portfolio. CMBS made up 64% of ARI's assets and 26% of equity at year-end. The portfolio has a weighted-average duration of roughly 1 year, and we expect ARI to transition to longer-duration loans with the repayment proceeds." ARI closed at $16.13 on Monday.