BUZZ-Top of the Street: Ryanair, Whitbread, Novartis, Utilities

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

** Credit Suisse downgrades Ryanair to "underperform" from "neutral" on concerns on margin control

** BofA Merrill Lynch cuts Whitbread to "underperform" from "neutral," pointing to high valuation and weak revenue per available room in UK regions

** European Utilities: Deutsche Bank says falling bond yields and strengthened earnings growth expectations leave scope for further European utility sector multiple expansion

DB raises National Grid and United Utilities to "buy" from "hold"; says stocks look attractive despite of continued UK political uncertainty

The brokerage also cuts Suez to "hold" from "sell"

** Novartis: Kepler Cheuvreux downgrades to "hold" from "buy"

(*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.)