Broker tips: Aberdeen, Prudential, Mothercare

12th Jul 2013 12:00

The recent share price fall at Aberdeen Asset Management over the past month has been overdone, according to UBS, which reiterated its 'buy' rating for the stock on Friday."The market is pricing in outflows in emerging market (EM) equities; while we expect these to have slowed, we note that Aberdeen has not had a single quarter of net outflows in equities since Q1-08," the broker said. UBS has added the stock to its 'most preferred' list, saying that its long-term performance remains strong and institutional clients are "sticky".Nomura has upgraded its rating for insurance and financial services group Prudential by two notches from 'reduce' to 'buy', labelling it as its favoured choice in the UK life sector."Prudential is our top pick in the sector. We believe it has a superior growth profile compared with its large cap peers on all metrics, which, importantly, is not at the expense of dividend growth. The company is ahead of achieving its 2013 cash and growth targets, and we believe new targets at its full-year results should act as a further catalyst for the stock."Panmure Gordon has upgraded its rating for Mothercare from 'sell' to 'hold' ahead of its first-quarter trading update next week which should benefit from soft comparatives with last year.The broker said the upgrade comes "on the back of irrepressible momentum with respect to sporting and Royal Baby news, our perception that the online search facility is improving, and an emerging stronger UK consumer generally".