BUZZ-Top of the Street: Schroders, Danone, E.ON, consumer staples

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

** RBC raises Schroders (Frankfurt: 929969 - news) to "outperform" on robust profitability; underlying business is in good shape and cost control will likely surprise on the upside, it says

** Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) cuts Kuehne und Nagel to "sell" saying higher freight rates are likely to put pressure on gross profit yields, thus constraining growth despite strong volumes

** E.ON: HSBC raises to "buy" seeing recent weakness as an excellent opportunity

** UBS (LSE: 0QNR.L - news) downgrades Lufthansa (Xetra: LHAB.DE - news) to "neutral" saying stock trades at PT; following recent consensus earnings upgrades broker believes stock is up with events

** European Consumer Products: Goldman Sachs says that higher input costs drive better pricing, but growth is still challenged

GS reinstates Danone (LSE: 0KFX.L - news) at "sell", says co will offer below sector growth as three out of four legacy divisions face growth challenges and newly acquired Whitewave is declining in the US

GS upgrades Diageo (LSE: DGE.L - news) to "neutral" from "sell", downgrades Coca Cola HBC to "neutral" from "buy" and reinstates Reckitt Benckiser (Xetra: A0M1W6 - news) with "neutral"

** GS downgrades Relx NV (LSE: 0NX9.L - news) to "neutral" following the stock's 14% outperformance vs the Media Sector and its lower upside potential vs other stocks that broker covers

** GS upgrades Aena (Dusseldorf: 26876733.DU - news) to "neutral" following underperformance

INITIATIONS:

** Morgan Stanley (Xetra: 885836 - news) starts Henkel (LSE: 0IZ8.L - news) with "equal weight"; it admires significant progress made at Henkel, but says its analysis suggests that consistent top-line growth will be hard to come by

(*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)