Benzinga's Downgrade Summary for June 20, 2012

Listed below are today's Top Downgrades covered by Benzinga: Citigroup Downgrades HSN HSNI to Neutral: Citigroup notes, "We rate HSN Neutral (2). Despite potential to accelerate buybacks and solid operating performance, we see only modest upside from current levels. …Our $42.50 target price is based upon 10.5x 2013E free cash flow plus value of cash on the balance sheet. We carry HSN at 10.5x FCF." Bank of America Downgrades Southern Company SO to Neutral: Bank of America comments, "We are downgrading SO to Neutral from Buy. SO is trading at an 11% premium to the regulated group. While we continue to like SO's high-quality, low-risk profile, we see this reflected in the premium stock valuation. SO is currently trading at an 18x forward P/E, one of the highest in the S&P 500. We believe the current flight to defensive stocks has benefitted utility stocks, but valuations look increasingly stretched, particularly for large cap names like SO." Goldman Sachs Downgrades Western Refining WNR to Neutral: Goldman Sachs notes, “Following strong absolute and relative (versus refining peers and XLE) share price performance, we downgrade Western shares to Neutral from Buy. While we still show a solid 22% upside to our $25 target price for Western, this is now less than the 29% average upside we show for the refining sector. Since being added to the Buy List on August 10, 2011, Western shares are +44.9% versus +4.3% for the XLE and +21.2% for the S&P 500. Over the last 12 months, Western shares are +40.1% versus +6.8% for the S&P500.” Jefferies Downgrades Acme Packet APKT to Hold: Jefferies comments, “While we still view many aspects of the Acme Packet story very favorably, we're concerned that near-term hesitation by N. American carriers to invest in the Wireline portions of their networks will make it difficult for Acme to hit Street expectations in H2'12. We're downgrading Acme Packet to Hold from Buy.” Goldman Sachs Downgrades Rockwell Collins COL to Sell: Goldman Sachs comments, "We expect Collins to underperform commercial aerospace peers for the duration of this cycle. In our view, the company is structurally challenged given its significant exposure to Defense and given new disruptive competition, and we see limited to no growth as a result over the next several years. We recognize the stock has already underperformed and its multiple is below the historical average, but believe these sticky challenges will continue to drive a de-rating and create persistent downside risk to EPS expectations. We also see multiple near-term negative catalysts." Sterne Agee Downgrades athenahealth ATHN to Underperform: Sterne Agee says, "Our downgrade rests on the belief that ATHN's ability to expand margins will be hampered by the increasing labor costs necessary to handle a growing installed base on , thus suppressing margin expansion going forward." Brean Murray Carret Downgrades CH Energy CHG to Sell: Brean Murray Carret comments, "We are lowering our rating to Sell with a target price of $65, based on the higher probability the company is sold to Fortis, given the shareholder vote yesterday approving the transaction. Our view is that investors should redeploy capital across the remainder of our coverage universe of gas/electric utilities that offer significant upside potential." All of Benzinga's Downgrade coverage can be viewed here.