Broker tips: Kingfisher, St James's Place, Halfords

The recent rally in Kingfisher's share price was paused on Thursday morning after Nomura downgraded its rating on the stock from 'neutral' to 'reduce', saying that shares in the B&Q owner have travelled too far given the tough times ahead.Nomura stands 6.0% below consensus with its profit before tax (PBT) estimates for the current year ending January 2014 - the broker expects an adjusted PBT of £725.8m. It said that given the estimated poor start to the year, with like-for-like sales thought to be down 3.1% in the first quarter, consensus forecasts will start to "track down if lost sales cannot be fully recovered in Q2".Shares in St James's Place (SJP) fell sharply after Lloyds placed 77m shares in the wealth manager, but Panmure Gordon kept its 'buy' rating for the stock saying it still remains its top pick for 2013."As with the previous placing in March we view the latest placing as positive as it indicates that Lloyds is willing to further reduce its stake in SJP thus removing what we believe is an overhang on the SJP share price together with increasing the free float," said analyst Barrie Cornes.Investec has recommended investors to 'buy' on share-price weakness at Halfords after the car- and bike-parts retailer announced a turnaround plan to boost growth in the future."Clearly, significant near-term forecast downgrades are disappointing, but we view risk to our numbers as being to the upside, and feel that the changes being put in place should lead to medium-term industry outperformance."