- Goldman Sachs downgrades First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) to Sell and adds to their Conviction Sell ListNC: The stock will get hit today in a major way. There is little support for FSLR in this mkt. I would not be surprised to see the stock hit par in the coming months. Note that SPWR gets the boot from GSCO as well. Piper lowers FSLR tgt to $250 from $350.- Morgan Stanley reits Overweight and $175 tgt on Monsanto (NYSE:MON) noting soft commodity price bearsare lurking around the wrong stock. While they do not foresee a $3 bushel of corn, the firm notes they have always modeled Monsanto's pricing power as if the farmer was only going to realize $3 corn (and $8 soybeans). The market appears to have a dispositive view (i.e., expecting $3 corn and for it to result in demand destruction for Monsanto’s products)...

The fertilizer industry is heading for the dumps today. The double blow of being downgraded by Citigroup (C) and RBC Capital is taking its toll, as Agrium (AGU) has lost 12.73% to trade at $65.32 in the morning. However, the greater impact has been on CF Industries (CF), which has tumbled by 19.62% while tremors are also being felt at Terra Industries (TRA), down by 22%.

According to an AP report, a recent drop in urea prices has sent shivers down the ranks of the fertilizer industry. Analysts predict the price weakness could spill into next year. With the broader market in a bear hug over the bailout package turmoil, other agricultural stocks like Monsanto (MON), Intrepid Potash (IPI) and Mosaic (MOS) have absorbed losses the range of 8-10% this morning.

"AGU" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?"IPI" Free Stock ...

Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) in focus today.Let's start with the downgrades:- Deutsche Bank lowers their rating to Sell from Hold, lowering their tgt to $70 from $120. RIM has become more dependent on hardware sales with time. This means that they have to keep running to keep up with changes in consumer tastes and risk missing numbers if their products do not hit. The company stated they expect operating margins to improve as R&D spend decreases, but also seemed to indicate ad spending would continue to grow. The company guided Q3 gross margins to 47% and expect the margins to move into the mid 40s in FY10. This is well below DB's estimate of 50%. RIM pointed to a large number of new product lines for the cut. In part, the firm thinks this is indicative of their struggle with 3G technologies among other issues....

RBC Capital upgrades MEMC Elec (NYSE:WFR) to Outperform from Sector Perform with a $53 tgt based on a likely renewal of demand growth in the solar sector led by pending passage of an 8-year extension and expansion of the U.S. solar tax credit program and a compelling valuation which they believe indicates over-pessimism baked into current share prices. Firm notes their upgrade is in conjunction with their macro report upgrading the entire solar sector, as they believe sector stocks are near a bottom. Their caution on WFR this year has been predicated on silicon oversupply risks in 2009 exacerbated by the company's execution issues. But they believe the fundamental headwinds in semi pricing, deterioration of spot poly prices in 2009 and a limited upside to Q3 #s from hurricane Ike impact is more than baked into the shares - trading at ~6x FY09E of $4.84. While FY09 sensitivity analysis is ...

RBC Capital is moving their rating on Banking Sector to Overweight:Gathering of Powerful People: Thursday night Congressional Leaders, The Treasury Secretary and The Federal Reserve Chairman jointly announced a cooperative effort to get ahead of the credit crisis. The plan is expected to be delivered to Congress in the next 24 hrs:Expected Key Components of Plan: 1) Create a mechanism that would take bad assets off the balance sheets of all financial companies 2) create federal insurance for investors in money-market funds 3) ban short selling of financial stocks through year end.Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) II: RBC anticipates a key component of the Treasury plan will be the creation of a govt. entity that will buy bad assets similar to the RTC in the late 80s-early 90s.The Devil is In Details: The headlines are very appealing to bank stock investors but the ...

We called Potash Corp. (NYSE:POT) the perfect stock back in March, when it was under $150 then ran all the way up to $241 a share.  Today, shares of POT are right back to $150 level and despite the haters, they are still one of the few companies that raised their 2008 and 2009 guidance. Morgan Stanley is out with a very positive Fertilizer call for Potash, saying they think the business model meltdown implied in fertilizer equities’ recent ~35% decline will prove unfounded. Firm believes that peak earnings are likely to come in 2011 (rather than in 2008, as implied by the ...

- CSFB is lowering Goldman (NYSE:GS) ests FQ3/FY2008 for the second time in couple of weeks.- RBC Capital is positive on Potash (NYSE:POT) reiterating their $375 tgt telling to look for sig. potash price increases in China.- RBC Capital is positive on Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) saying 4MM iPod announcement coming soon.- Oppenheimer out positive on RF Micro (NASDAQ:RFMD) saying qtr is tracking better than consensus. Reits Outperform and $7 tgt.- Lehman (NYSE:LEH) looks interesting as KDB's $5 bln offer for 25% stake shows there may be a premium to the story after all. Especially with HSBC also looking into buying the co.- CIBC is upgrading US Steel (NYSE:X) to Outperform.- Citigroup is defending Dell (NASDAQ:DELL)Notablecalls: Hope it helps - fyi

Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet says he recently upgraded Cablevision Systems (CVC) shares to buy from sell based on CVC’s robust second quarter performance despite threats from Verizon’s (VZ) fiber-optic service FiOS. BUT Bazinet now believes that CVC is trading too high vs. peers such as Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC), and also wonders how long CVC can remain immune to FiOS. He cites VZ’s recent announcement to build out New York City and CVC’s heavy exposure in the Bronx and Brooklyn. As for the downgrade, he adds that near-term selling pressure could be strong because of the increased concentration of CVC shares — the top holders now control 73% of the equity not owned by the Dolan family, vs. 52% a year ago. He maintains a $29 target price.

Track his pick at:

http://trackthepros.com/categories.php?category_id=794

JEFFERIES  analyst Arthur Henderson believes Healthways’ (HWAY) premium-priced offering is less attractive

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