Up/Downgrades

Published on Thursday, 16 August 2012 08:11 Written by Danny Miller

New York, August 16^th (TradersHuddle.com) – Following are some of the upgrades and downgrades before the market open.

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie, but upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush.

Achillion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACHN) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at JMP Securities.

Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) was downgraded to a Negative from Neutral at Susquehanna and to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole.

Bally Technologies (NYSE: BYI) was downgraded to a Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Convergys (NYSE: CVG) was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer

CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

CRH Plc. (NYSE: CRH) was downgraded to a Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.

Digital Domain Media Group (NYSE: DDMG) was downgraded to a Neutral from Buy at Janney Capital Markets.

GNC Holdings (NYSE: GNC) was downgraded to a Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.

Lone Pine Resources (NYSE: LPR) was downgraded to a Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.

NorthWestern Corp. (NYSE: NWE) was upgraded to a Buy from Hold at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

SINA (NASDAQ: SINA) was downgraded to a Hold from Buy at Jefferies.

Staples Inc (NASDAQ: SPLS) was downgraded to a Sell from Neutral at Citigroup.