BUZZ-Top of the Street: Equinor, Boliden, Galapagos, Fuchs Petrolub

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

** Pareto Securities double downgrades Equinor to "sell" from "buy", which should be seen in light of downgrade of oil price forecast for next year

** Polymetal: JP Morgan cuts to "underweight" from "neutral" on valuation grounds and 2019 capex creep

** JP Morgan also raises Boliden (LSE: 0MI5.L - news) to "neutral" from "underweight"

** Credit Suisse (IOB: 0QP5.IL - news) upgrades Galapagos (LSE: 0JXZ.L - news) to "outperform" from "neutral", saying that it sees multiple possible pathways to further upside

** European Insurance: Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) raises to "positive" from "neutral", as fundamentals are incrementally improving across all subsectors

INITIATIONS AND REINSTATEMENTS

** Credit Suisse starts Fuchs Petrolub (Swiss: FPE3.SW - news) with "underperform", saying co is priced as a defensive stock, which the brokerage views as unwarranted given its more cyclical historical performance and lower 2019E EBITDA margins, FCF yield and dividend yield

(*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.) (magdalena.pilarczyk@tr.com; anita.kobylinska@tr.com)