BUZZ-Top of the Street: Provident Financial, German utilities, Persimmon

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

** JPMorgan (LSE: JPIU.L - news) cuts Provident Financial (Other OTC: FPLPF - news) to "neutral" as after announcing further disruption to Home Credit, business and regulatory perspectives are not certain

Also Barclays downgrades stock to "equal weight" highlighting uncertainty over FCA investigation (concerning co’s Repayment Option Plan) and the size of the potential financial impact

** In a note "German Utilities: powering on" RBC Capital Markets points to E.ON and RWE (IOB: 0FUZ.IL - news) as its preferred names and says overall as a group German utilities have outperformed the sector by a significant margin in 2017 "Net (LSE: 0LN0.L - news) receipt of ~€2.5bn from the nuclear fuel tax legal dispute has a transformational effect on our view of E.ON", broker says and upgrades stock to "outperform" seeing E.ON's balance sheet now repaired and with scope for additional growth capex

** Cannacord Genuity cuts Persimmon (Frankfurt: 882058 - news) to "hold" on valuation grounds as it says: "operationally the group is delivering exceptionally well, supported by good trading momentum" INITIATIONS

** Jefferies starts German food retailer Metro (Dusseldorf: 62M.DU - news) with "hold" saying co is still lagging behind peers in W. Europe and the c. 30% exposure to Russia is worrying

(*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)