BUZZ-Top of the Street: UK homebuilders, Statoil, Gemalto, Ubisoft, SKF

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

** Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) cuts Bellway (Frankfurt: 869646 - news) to "equal weight" and Berkeley Group to "underweight", saying "tackling the real inhibiting factor (skilled labour shortages) is less easy"

** Broker adds expectations of further government measures could be overblown

** Capital & Counties Properties (LSE: CAPC.L - news) : top-ranked UBS raises to "buy", says market appears to completely discount Earls Court & ignore two medium-term upside drivers (density increase, Conditional Land Sale Agreement land recognition)

** Broker says share price implies unlikely 40 pct drop in house prices

** 5-star ranked Citigroup (NYSE: C - news) cuts Statoil (LSE: 0M2Z.L - news) to "neutral" as it concludes that the company "will remain a reserve-life outlier i.e. we struggle to find an in-house solution that will close the reserve-life gap"

** 4-star ranked HSBC raises Gemalto (LSE: 0OGA.L - news) to "buy"; expects top-line growth and operating leverage to return in 2018

** Top-ranked Bryan Garnier cuts Ubisoft to "neutral" citing stretched valuation and possibility Vivendi (Swiss: VIV.SW - news) ends up selling its stake

** Barclays raises SKF (LSE: 0NWW.L - news) to "equal weight" pointing to strong cyclical tailwinds in co's key industrial end markets

(*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.)