Broker tips: Barclays, BG Group, Lonmin

31st Oct 2012 11:05

Nomura has maintained its 'reduce' rating and 210p target price for UK banking giant Barclays, labelling the firm's third-quarter results as 'underwhelming'.The broker said in a 'First Look' research report that, given Barclays had pre-announced, the focus was on whether the underlying mix of earnings was better. "Relative to our expectations, BarCap was weaker and Head Office was better, which we find uninspiring. In terms of group earnings, income and costs were both lower than our expectations (a function of our higher BarCap expectations) and LLPs were better."Seymour Pierce has said that oil and gas firm BG Group's third-quarter results on the whole represent a "mixed bag of contradictory statements and transactions".Whilst Seymour Pierce does not have a rating and target price for BG Group, analyst Sam Wahab said: "In view of BP's consensus beating Q3 results this week, the market may see their shares as representing better value than BG's going forward."Credit Suisse has upgraded its rating for platinum miner Lonmin from 'underperform' to 'neutral' after the 800m-dollar fully underwritten rights issue.Following Tuesday's rights issue news, the broker said: "we believe that the company will remain well capitalised for the next three years on both spot and base case forecasts." Credit Suisse says that the stock is "no longer a sell" given Lonmin's "significant operational leverage to a potentially tightening platinum market".BC