BUZZ-Top of the Street: Pearson, Relx, Orion, ACS

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

** Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) cuts Pearson (Xetra: 858266 - news) to "underweight". "It used to be easy to make Pearson's shares look good value in outer years if a few elements showed better progress. Now (Frankfurt: 11N.F - news) we find that, even in an upside scenario, it is hard to generate much upside to the current price," broker says

** Relx Group gets downgraded to "sell" by UBS (LSE: 0QNR.L - news) , which sees the stock's valuation full (vs peers), with EPS forecast to decelerate while STM (Shenzhen: 000892.SZ - news) (Scientific, Technical & Medical) and Legal risks increasing

** Jefferies downgrades Orion (LSE: 0M2N.L - news) to "underperform" as it expects R&D costs to rise and it points to lack of near mid-term pipeline opportunities

** Following Cofinimmo's acquisition of a directly income-generating German healthcare portfolio, KBC Securities raises its FY 2018 EPRA EPS estimates and ups co to "accumulate"

INITIATIONS AND REINSTATEMENTS

** Morgan Stanley (Xetra: 885836 - news) resumes its coverage on ACS Actividades at "equal weight", saying that with integration still to be achieved post the Abertis (Amsterdam: IF6.AS - news) deal, and remaining uncertainty on shareholder remuneration and future capex, the shares look fairly priced

(*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)