Broker tips: Insurers, Anglo American, Fenner

15th Jan 2014 11:19

Credit Suisse has upgraded its rating for Standard Life from 'neutral' to 'outperform', saying it prefers more "life-orientated" insurers or conglomerate businesses over the property and casualty (P&C) sub-sector."With much of the rest of the sector trading at relatively fuller valuations and likely to see relatively limited earnings momentum as a result of yields remaining low and the P&C cycle coming to a peak, we see groups with greater exposure to unit-linked life business and those able to deliver improvement through restructuring as better placed to perform." As such, it has named Prudential ('outperform') as its top pick in the life insurance sector and said it remains positive towards Aviva ('outperform').The investment case for Anglo American is improving after the stock's recent weakness, according to UBS on Wednesday, which upgraded the diversified mining firm from 'neutral' to 'buy'. "Anglo has underperformed the other diversified miners by 18% over the last three months, and, in our opinion, the valuation now looks attractive with the dividend yield at 4.1% and the price-to-net present value ratio at 0.64," the bank said.Numis Securities has kept its 'add' rating and 475p target price for Fenner but has reduced its forecasts for the industrial polymer products company due to currency headwinds.Nevertheless, the broker said it remains positive on the group's long-term prospects: "We believe that the shares have potential to re-rate later in the year as further evidence of a return to normal mining replacement cycles emerge."BC