BUZZ-Top of the Street: Ladbrokes, Yara, Jupiter, Software, Micro Focus

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

** Despite merger plans with GVC, Ladbrokes Coral (LSE: LAD.L - news) Group begins the week with a downgrade from Morgan Stanley (Shenzhen: 002588.SZ - news) from "overweight" to "equal weight"; broker sees the combination of businesses as attractive but with limited upside

** Bernstein says Chinese coal will continue to support higher than expected urea prices and upgrades Yara International (LSE: 0O7D.L - news) ASA to "outperform"

** Jefferies is making a reluctant move to "hold" for asset manager Jupiter after both H1 and Q3 came ahead of estimates; strong share price forces a downgrade

** UBS (LSE: 0QNR.L - news) points out that Software AG (IOB: 0NJS.IL - news) offers an attractive dividend yield and shows some potential for buybacks. However, valuation is more demanding, hence downgrades to "neutral"

** Broker Numis lowers its rating for Micro Focus to "add" from "buy", citing a modestly disappointing operating underperformance and strong recent share price

(*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.)