BUZZ-Top of the Street: Akzo Nobel, AstraZeneca, Statoil, Evonik

A round-up of notable broker activity this morning from Europe's top-ranked* analysts:

** Societe Generale (Swiss: 519928.SW - news) downgrades Akzo Nobel (Amsterdam: AKZA.AS - news) to "hold", as it remains unconvinced by the 2020 targets used to fend off PPG & sees structural hurdles implying co could only achieve half its target margin uplift with its current mix

** 5-star analyst Simon Baker from Exane BNP Paribas raises AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) to "outperform" saying that in light of the recent successes in the PACIFIC and FLAURA studies, co has begun to crystallise some of its pipeline potential, establishing over $4 bln of peak sales potential from those two studies alone

** Exane BNP Paribas also raises Norwegian energy company (LSE: 0HTF.L - news) Statoil (LSE: 0M2Z.L - news) to "neutral" from "underperform" saying capex likely to be used as a lever to enable scrip to stay off around $50/bbl and seeing higher cash flows in 2019 and 2020 providing options for buy-backs and M&A

** Evonik: Credit Suisse (IOB: 0QP5.IL - news) upgrades to "outperform", citing Methionine's decreasing importance in co's EBITDA; says current utilization rates suggest prices should stabilise, which should largely derisk Nutrition and Care earnings profile

INITIATIONS AND REINSTATEMENTS

** UBS (LSE: 0QNR.L - news) initiates coverage of Merck KGaA (LSE: 0O14.L - news) with "buy", saying co's LifeScience division benefits from biopharma industry's trend of overinvesting in R&D

(*Analyst rankings from Thomson Reuters StarMine. Scale is from 1-star to 5-star with 5 being best. Analysts ranked on earnings accuracy as well as relative performance of recommendations over trailing 12-month & 24-month periods)