BUZZ-Top of the Street: Berkeley, BP, Genmab, insurers

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

** Liberum's Charlie Campbell downgrades Berkeley to "hold" following good performance and taking into account return on equity in 2019E, by which point the supra-normal returns from land acquired early after the crisis are likely to fade

** Deutsche Bank (IOB: 0H7D.IL - news) raises BP to "buy" citing anticipated news on project starts in Egypt, Oman, UK, T&T, among others; says risk/reward balance in BP's equity is notably improved

** Genmab (LSE: 0MGB.L - news) : Deutsche Bank cuts to "hold", citing uncertainties over Darzalex's positioning in 1L multiple myeloma (MM) pending results of ongoing Phase III trials and removal of Darzalex sales in Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL (Shanghai: 600262.SS - news) )

** A2A (EUREX: 928195.EX - news) : Kepler Cheuvreux says co's 2017 guidance and 2017-21 targets are almost in line with broker's estimates; cuts to "hold" due to recent excellent performance of stock

** Tele2 (LSE: 0QE6.L - news) : Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) cuts to "underweight" on valuation driven by a strong positive swing in Sweden service revenue and EBITDA momentum, says some margin pressure in the growth areas and declines in legacy business areas are more than offsetting the strategy of challenger business model in co's key markets, resulting in earnings pressure INITIATIONS:

** A.P. Moller-Maersk: HSBC starts with "buy" encouraged by some signs of market equilibrium in the container shipping industry after years of weak returns caused by excess capacity and falling demand

** Melrose Industries Plc (Frankfurt: 27MA.F - news) : Stifel initiates with "buy", seeing co's senior management team key to the success of the business model; "The recent Nortek (NasdaqGS: NTK - news) deal is already delivering, and management commentary indicates a high likelihood of further acquisitions, and we believe any announcement will drive an immediate uplift in the shares", broker adds

** Exane BNP Paribas starts Rentokil Initial Plc (Other OTC: RKLIF - news) with "outperform", says market underestimates margin opportunity for co

** Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) /European multi-line insurers: broker says most appear to have a sufficient buffer over minimum required capital, providing surety over dividend capabilities

Broker starts with "buy" for Zurich Insurance Group and Allianz SE (LSE: 0M6S.L - news) , with "neutral" for AXA (Paris: FR0000120628 - news) and "sell" for Generali (EUREX: 566030.EX - news) (*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)