Benzinga's Top Downgrades With Color for May 18, 2012

Listed below are today's Top Downgrades at Benzinga:

Cantor Fitzgerald went on to say “This takes the nascent U.S. solar industry evolution out of the hands of entrepreneurs and technologists and into the hands of politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers. We expect significant near-term uncertainty for SATC projects in the U.S.. and we believe there is a high degree of risk in our earnings models. The DOC ruling will certainly be appealed, and a final ruling is due in October, but we believe the damage to downstream solar is just starting.”

Imperial Capital says, "We see elevated liquidity risks given our estimated negative free cash flow of approximately $9mn in 2012, which assumes strong second half improvement. Additional project delays could put significant pressure on the company's liquidity, potentially reducing the company's growth investments and capital spending for transponder capacity. We note the company's delayed 10-Q filing on 5/15/12 included “going concern” commentary. While overly conservative, we believe INVE could execute an asset sale or equity financing at or below current levels."

Goldman Sachs comments, "Though there are essentially no changes to our outlook for the company or our estimates, relative price moves have created more attractive risk/reward propositions in the space. We continue to believe that Bankrate's organic traffic mix, leverage to a highly ROI-driven segment of online advertising, and growth potential make it one of the stronger fundamental small-cap internet stories."

Cantor Fitzgerald went on to say “On May 17, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed an immediate 31% duty on Chinese-manufactured c-Si cells, modules, and panels. With the European solar market in decline and most of world's solar panels manufactured in China, we believe this ruling will have a significant negative effect on what has been a growing U.S. market. The significant growth in U.S. solar installations has been fueled by dropping prices of solar panels. This makes everything from residential solar to utility-scale solar financially viable (in some cases with subsidies). We believe that many will now be in limbo as developers try to make the business case with increased costs.”