5 Stocks Seeing Big Analyst Downgrades

By Larry Gellar Today we’ll be taking a look at the latest rating downgrades from Wall Street analysts. Abercrombie & Fitch and TJX Companies are both competitive retailers, but we think one of them is better positioned for the future. Meanwhile, AFLAC and Huntington Bancshares are hurting due to headwinds affecting the financial industry as a whole. Oracle could be hit in anticipation of reduced software spending. Let’s see what specifically has been happening with these stocks: Brean Murray downgraded Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) from Buy to Hold. The firm also cut earnings estimates for Abercrombie & Fitch due to expectations that margins will be lower. In fact, Abercrombie & Fitch stock has been sliding for some time now. While shares were trading for over $75 a share back in October, the current stock price is just above $45. Regardless, value metrics like price to earnings and price to sales ratios are still pretty high for Abercrombie & Fitch compared to American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) and Gap (GPS). Abercrombie & Fitch’s gross margin of 62.94% is still much better than the competition, although operating margin of 9.03% is a tad low. Nevertheless, the Trefis Team over at Forbes still thinks…