HSBC Holdings Share News (HSBA)

Goldman Sachs has removed banking giant HSBC from its 'conviction buy' list and cut its recommendation on the stock to 'neutral', slashing its target price from 760p to 690p.Goldman said its investment case on HSBC was predicated on a strategic shift towards geographic streamlining and meaningful investment banking cuts."In our view, HSBC delivered on select aspects, but fell short on others, most notably on the potential for streamlining its sub-scale retail businesses, which we continue to see as key in addressing group returns," Goldman said.With several trends set to benefit the European economy, Societe Generale's scrutiny of the contract catering sector picked out Elior as its preferred stock and saw Compass downgraded to a 'sell'.Compass, which has the largest US exposure among peers at 49% of revenues, is less well-placed to benefit from an economic improvement in the view of SocGen's analysts."Scope for improvement at Compass is now more limited in our view following the rationalisation measures already undertaken by the group."Foxtons slumped 4% on Tuesday after Citigroup initiated coverage of the stock at 'sell' with a 215p price target.It said Foxtons has the strongest brand profile and margin performance of the three stocks it was examining in its note on UK estate agents. However, the company is largely focused on London, where Citi has concerns regarding end-market dynamics, given affordability issues which may curtail volumes."We also suggest there is limited scope for margin expansion and given management's organic growth plans there is also no consolidation optionality," said the bank, adding that the stock trades at a significant premium to peers.RBC Capital Markets downgraded Standard Life to 'underperform' from 'sector perform' and cut the price target to 430p from 480p."A comparison with asset managers indicates to us that Standard Life is relatively expensive and not worthy of its current 16.3x price-to-earnings multiple. We see its main product pensions coming under considerable pressure in the 8 July UK Budget," said the brokerage.RBC expects Standard Life to underperform its peers, noting that it's more cautious on pensions."We expect changes to pensions tax relief for higher earners in the UK which will negatively impact a company with a high-end brand like Standard Life," remarked the brokerage.