The case against punishing Russia at the WTO
Removing most-favoured nation status will have little material impact and might damage the institution
Hello and welcome to Trade Secrets. We have very little happy news to report in these dark times. At least the rich-world democracies are trying almost everything they can to isolate President Vladimir Putin’s regime and cripple the invasion, short of anything like a no-fly zone that’s going to put them at actual war with Russia. Casting around the uninspiring landscape of global governance, the World Trade Organization naturally stands out as a beacon of symbolic salience. Thus Friday’s announcement that the G7 nations will remove most-favoured nation (MFN) status from Russia at the WTO, denying its exporters the right to face the same general tariffs as other members. Today’s main piece looks at the potential downside to that decision, while Charted waters looks at the implications of the international food crisis created by the conflict.
As ever I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and suggestions: the email address is alan.beattie@ft.com.
Doing Putin no favours
So, the most-favoured nation thing. I hate to sound like some process-obsessed bore or a journalist captured by the institutions he covers — though I think few in Geneva would call me a mindless cheerleader for the WTO’s membership — but I’ve got some reservations about this. One, it will probably have little practical effect at the margin. Two, as a symbolic gesture it feels a bit redundant. Three, most importantly, it further reinforces the idea that multilateral economic institutions and rules are now entirely at the service of foreign and strategic policy, to their ultimate detriment.
First, on the practical point. If the G7 and EU want to stifle Russia’s economy and war machine (and they do), they have better, faster, more precise tools they can choose (and already have) out of a wide range of instruments, including sanctions on individuals and freezes on central bank assets. It’s not clear what marginal tariff increases the MFN decision will place on Russia. It’s worth noting that because of all the extra access on top of WTO rules given by preferential trade deals, of which Russia has none with any G7 country, most-favoured nation status in practice is more like least-favoured nation.
As the redoubtable Ed Gresser of the Progressive Policy Institute points out, the kind of stuff Russia sends abroad traditionally doesn’t face many tariffs even for exports from countries outside the WTO. Russia exports hydrocarbons and minerals, which tend to enter at zero tariff, because few countries want to make basic commodity imports more expensive for their companies. There’s a reason Russia didn’t exactly race into the WTO — it joined in 2012 at the same time as Vanuatu after an accession process lasting nearly twenty years, a decade behind Georgia, Moldova and Armenia — which is that it didn’t have much to gain.
Second, the symbolic point. Yes, taking away Russia’s MFN would be a big gesture, signalling that you can’t do what Putin’s doing and be treated as a normal country in any major international forum. Expelling Russia altogether would be even more dramatic, but that’s impossible. However, what is the marginal demonstrative value of removing Russia’s WTO benefits now? The rich-world countries have hit Putin’s regime with some of the broadest and deepest set of sanctions anyone can remember. He and his closest cronies can’t travel; they’ve had their bank accounts frozen; yachts are being seized from marinas across Europe; the Russian central bank can’t use its foreign exchange assets; Russian planes can’t fly and Russian cargo boats can’t dock; Russian companies can’t export or import; foreign companies are fleeing Russia; Europe and the US are funnelling arms to Russia’s enemy. Russia’s been banned from the football World Cup, the Paralympics and the Eurovision Song Contest. You can’t get a McDonald’s Happy Meal or a Coke in Moscow. I think Putin’s probably got the message that people don’t like him.
And so to what I think is the third and underconsidered issue — the potential damage caused to the WTO and multilateral trade regime. Legally, what the G7 are doing is probably fine. They can invoke Article XXI, which protects countries’ rights to take security measures “in time of war or other emergency in international relations”, which obviously fits the bill. The definition is also traditionally self-judging: countries decide their security needs for themselves. It’s been invoked during conflict before, including by the EU during the 1982 Falklands war between the UK and Argentina.
But this is a particularly unfortunate time to use it. Recent abuse of the exemption has endangered the integrity of the WTO. Former US president Donald Trump’s (and now President Joe Biden’s) invocation of national security for the very obviously protectionist purpose of imposing steel and aluminium tariffs, including on exports from foreign policy allies, has threatened to unravel the web of international law.
As I wrote the other week, in 2016 the Trump administration lined up on the side of Russia against Ukraine in a case about blocking transit across Russia. The US took this stance to defend countries’ rights to self-judge their security needs to help pave the way to its own steel and aluminium decision.
As uses of Article XXI go, the legal argument for invoking it against Moscow is very solid. But solid cases can create expectations and habits on which shakier cases rest. The WTO could probably do without being automatically treated as a tool of foreign policy right now, however morally justified this particular instance. This is a very good overview of the intersection of war and the WTO by the redoubtable Mona Paulsen at the London School of Economics.
In fact, the Russia MFN issue looks like a twist on the traditional problem with the WTO during the 1990s and 2000s. Back then, because the WTO was basically the only international institution by which the US allowed itself to be bound, it was continually being eyed up by bright sparks quixotically wanting it to fix tangentially related issues such as free speech.
The current situation feels more like rich-country governments, one of which (the US) has already undermined the WTO by crippling its dispute settlement system, feeling free to load the institution up with political baggage because it’s already basically on its knees. If the national security exemption becomes routine, there won’t be a functioning WTO left to strike postures with at all.
So that’s the case against withdrawing MFN preferences. I certainly wouldn’t go to the wall for it; reasonable people can disagree on these things. But it’s not the self-evidently right course of action that it might appear.
Charted waters
The Ukrainian war has exposed the extent and importance of global trade, and how sanctions on Russia cut both ways.
Russia and Ukraine supply almost a third of the world’s wheat exports. Ukraine is known as the “bread basket of Europe” and many countries in the Middle East and north Africa are also heavily reliant on it for wheat supplies. Moreover, prices have soared to record highs as Black Sea ports are at a virtual standstill amid the Russian assault.
This is of particular concern to Turkey, which relies on Russia for more than 60 per cent of its wheat imports, according to COMTRADE. Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation in Turkey had hit a 20-year high of 54.4 per cent in February. The war in Ukraine will only exacerbate the problem of the rising cost of living, which will stoke civil unrest. (Jonathan Moules)
Trade links
Matthew Yglesias at Bloomberg says the Ukraine war is accelerating a decline in world trade, and we’ll miss globalisation when it’s gone.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine will have a massive impact on global food supply.
“Germany had outsourced its security to the United States, its energy needs to Russia and its export-led growth to China,” the Brookings Institution’s Constanze Stelzenmüller tells The Economist, summing up in 21 words what we’ve been trying to convey in hundreds.
Russia has authorised its companies to steal patents from any of dozens of countries it deems “unfriendly”.
Russia is warning it may pay external debtors in roubles, threatening the country’s first debt default since 1998.
The Office Group agrees £1.5bn merger
Discounted valuations post-pandemic help spur consolidation as workers return
Two leading UK-based office landlords are set to merge in a £1.5bn deal that would make the combined group one of the most significant players in the fast-growing flexible office sector.
The Office Group, majority owned by US private equity group Blackstone, and Brockton Capital-backed Fora have agreed to combine, creating a company with more than 3mn sq ft of office space across the UK and Germany. The companies’ bosses plan further expansion into European cities if the merger is approved.
The financial terms of the merger have not been disclosed, but according to people familiar with both companies the combined entity would be valued at about £1.5bn.
The merger, which is subject to regulatory approval, is the latest sign of consolidation in the flexible office sector.
This month, FTSE 250 listed flexible working company Workspace agreed a deal to acquire McKay Securities for £272mn, bolstering its office portfolio in London and the south-east.
IWG, one of the largest operators of flexible and serviced offices in the world, last week announced a £270mn investment into London-based flexible workspace company The Instant Group.
The deals come as coronavirus restrictions are lifted and workers begin to drift back to offices.
But average office occupancy rates remain far below pre-pandemic levels. In the week ending March 4, average occupancy in the UK was just 21 per cent — though that was likely to have been affected by Tube strikes in London — according to Remit Consulting.
Investors in flexible workspaces are betting that offices that provide a high level of amenities and flexible leasing terms will grow in appeal, even if hybrid working patterns mean average occupancy rates are lower than before the pandemic.
“Businesses are increasingly recognising that the workplace is no longer a commodity, but rather a space that can be used to actively drive improved productivity, collaboration and the wellbeing of their teams,” said Enrico Sanna, Fora’s chief executive.
Sanna will be the chief executive of the merged group. Katrina Larkin, co-founder of Fora, will be chief environment, social and governance officer. Olly Olsen and Charlie Green, co-founders of The Office Group, will be executive chair and president respectively.
“At certain scales and with a diversity of options [flexible working] can work well. If you have a broad portfolio and you can offer tenants a range of spaces to grow into, then it works,” said Colm Lauder, an analyst at Goodbody.
Tenants in The Office Group and Fora offices include oil supermajor BP, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and online grocer Ocado.
But the spate of mergers and acquisitions was motivated as much by the discounts available to investors in listed real estate companies because of the pandemic as by the specific appeals of flexible working, said Lauder.
According to Goodbody, 19 listed property companies have been taken private or merged with others in the past three years, with the coronavirus pandemic having pushed valuations down sharply.
Taiwan Air Force Loses Second Jet Fighter This Year
Crash comes as the war in Ukraine intensifies concerns about Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against China
TAIPEI—A Taiwanese jet fighter plunged into the sea Monday, the second such incident this year and the seventh since the start of 2020, leading the island’s air force to ground some of its military aircraft amid growing tensions with China.
Taiwan’s air force said the pilot ejected from his single-seat Mirage 2000 aircraft in a parachute at 11:26 a.m. local time, more than an hour after it took off on a combat training mission from an airfield in the eastern county of Taitung.
The pilot, who is alive and in good condition, was pulled out of the water by a helicopter roughly 40 minutes later and sent to a hospital in Taitung for a medical examination, the air force said, adding that a special task force has been sent to the airfield to investigate the cause of the crash.
Lt. Col. Huang Chung-kai, 39 years old and an experienced Mirage flight instructor, reported experiencing a mechanical problem before bailing out of the aircraft, a military official said Monday.
A spokesman for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement that the defense minister immediately reported the incident to the president, who ordered an investigation and continued search for the aircraft.
During a Monday news conference following the crash, Maj. Gen. Liu Hui-chien, the Taiwan Air Force’s inspector general, said all of the island’s Mirage 2000s are being grounded for safety checks. Training missions for other aircraft—including F-16s and Indigenous Defense Fighters—are also being suspended, while surveillance and patrol missions remain unaffected.
The plane crash comes as the war in Ukraine intensifies concerns about Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a possible invasion by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Beijing, which regards Taiwan as part of China, has vowed to take control of the democratically self-ruled island by force if necessary.
During the past two years, China’s military has sent jet fighters, bombers and other military aircraft on sorties near Taiwan on a nearly daily basis, part of what Taiwan describes as a form of “gray zone” warfare. Beijing’s aim, according to Taiwanese officials, is to probe and exhaust the island’s defenses, while discouraging Taipei from tightening ties with Washington and other democratic capitals.
The Taiwanese Air Force said China’s PLA on Monday sent a total of 13 warplanes—mostly its J-10 and J-16 jet fighters—just southwest of Taiwan’s airspace.
Maj. Gen. Liu said the grounding of Mirage 2000s wouldn’t affect Taiwan’s air defenses. The island has enough other jet fighters to ensure that patrol missions, “which are at a high-threat level, can be fully fulfilled,” he said.
Monday’s crash is the latest in a string of accidents, some of them deadly, experienced by Taiwan’s air force during the past two years. In January, a Taiwanese pilot died after his F-16 plunged into the ocean, prompting questions from lawmakers about strain on fighter pilots.
The French-made Mirage 2000 is an aging single-engine fighter that was introduced in the late 1970s by Dassault Aviation SA and is no longer in production. The aircraft involved in Monday’s incident was built in 1998, the air force said.
A Taiwan Air Force Mirage 2000 went missing while on a training mission in 2017. Taiwan’s military reported locating the jet’s black box nearly two years later, but hasn’t publicly released any findings from it.
After Walt Disney, Robert Iger Heads to the Metaverse
The former CEO and chairman has joined the board of a startup that offers tools to create and sell virtual goods
Robert Iger spent decades helming a company known for its animated characters. For his next act, the former Walt Disney Co. boss is backing a startup that celebrities and others are using to create avatars for the much-hyped metaverse.
In his first career move since leaving the entertainment company in November, Mr. Iger has taken a board seat with Los Angeles-based Genies Inc. He is also an investor in the business, one of five fledgling tech companies he’s recently backed. Other Genies investors include Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital, Breyer Capital and New Enterprise Associates.
Mr. Iger, 71 years old, met with about two dozen startup executives before making his investments and becoming one of five directors on Genies’ board, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I was particularly interested in companies that were using technology for disruptive purposes and, where possible, the intersection between technology and creativity,” he said.
Mr. Iger was chief executive of Disney from 2005 until early 2020, and continued as executive chairman after that until last year.
Genies was founded in 2017 by Akash Nigam, a 29-year-old entrepreneur. The company, which has raised $100 million in funding and employs more than 100 people, offers tools for making virtual characters, clothing and accessories backed by nonfungible tokens. NFTs are considered an integral part of what many see as the next big wave of tech innovation dubbed Web 3.0 or Web3.
Genies also operates an NFT marketplace where its users can sell their creations for a 5% fee on primary and secondary sales. Last year Genies signed partnerships with Universal Music Group NV and Warner Music Group Corp. , through which it counts artists such as Justin Bieber, Migos, Rihanna and Cardi B as users.
“We believe that avatar ecosystems are going to impact Web3, the same way that mobile apps impacted Web2,” Mr. Nigam said in an interview. “We deliver a variety of different tools, tools that allow users to create different types of avatar species, to create different avatar fashion lines, to be able to create different avatar worlds, and then also avatar interactive experiences.”
Mr. Iger said he was attracted to Genies because he believes the ability for anyone to easily create and sell virtual goods will change the entertainment industry and be a key component of the metaverse, a term used to describe developing virtual worlds where people are expected to work, learn and socialize. The freedom to use existing intellectual property was particularly appealing.
“Imagine, you know, letting someone buy a Mickey Mouse avatar and customizing it in a way that not only would we never allow it before, but it was kind of hard to do in the physical world,” Mr. Iger said.
He also said he is a proponent of Web 3.0, which is considered by some as essential to realizing the metaverse. “I’m being entrepreneurial at this point in my life,” he said.
NFTs are a component of the metaverse and Web 3.0 as they certify ownership of unique virtual goods via blockchain technology. Though relatively new and unproven, the NFT market has grown over the past year, with people buying characters, artwork, videogame assets and more to use or show off in virtual worlds. While prices have been volatile, total NFT sales climbed to more than $17 billion in 2021 from less than $100 million in 2020, according to a new report from industry tracker Nonfungible.com and forecasting firm L’Atelier BNP Paribas.
Celebrities including Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow have been drawn to the space, helping to put a pricey collection of NFTs depicting apes called Bored Ape Yacht Club into the spotlight. Genies, through its music-industry partnerships, says it has an edge in the character, or avatar, corner of the market. Still, it remains to be seen as to how much value the NFTs people are buying today will have down the road and what kind of revenue operators of NFT marketplaces can expect.
At Walt Disney, Mr. Iger led negotiations to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm and Pixar, and then successfully integrated those brands alongside well-known legacy characters like Mickey Mouse.
Mr. Iger helped make Disney more tech-centric by overseeing the launch of the company’s popular streaming service Disney+. For his post-Disney life, he likened his decision to join Genies’ board to taking chances on a pitch for a new movie.
“A movie director comes in with a great idea and you take a leap of faith,” he said.
Rio Tinto offers $2.7bn to buy Turquoise Hill stake in Oyu Tolgoi mine
Group seeks remaining 49% of Canadian company that controls huge Mongolian copper project
Rio Tinto has offered $2.7bn in cash to buy out minority shareholders in the Canadian vehicle that gives its control of its most important project, a huge underground copper deposit in the Gobi desert.
The move, which follows a recent deal with Mongolia to complete the underground development of Oyu Tolgoi, shows how big miners are trying to increase exposure to the raw materials that will be needed in the shift to a low-carbon economy.
Copper is used in electric vehicles and also in ward farms and there is a global shortage of new projects at the scale of Oyu Tolgoi.
Rio, which is generating vast amounts of cash because of record commodity prices, said on Monday it was offering C$34 ($26.60) a share to acquire the 49 per cent of Turquoise Hill Resources it does not already own, a 32 per cent premium to Friday closing price.
Bold Baatar, the head of the Anglo-Australian group’s copper division, said the offer would create a “simpler and efficient ownership” structure for Oyu Tolgoi.
Although Rio is in charge of the project it does not have a direct stake in Oyu Tolgoi. Instead it holds a 51 per cent stake in Toronto-listed Turquoise Hill, which in turns owns 66 per cent of Oyu Tolgoi. The rest is owned by Ulan Bator.
The non-binding proposal comes six weeks after Rio clinched a deal to start underground caving at Oyu Tolgoi after agreeing to write off $2.4bn in loans and interest owed by the Mongolian government to fund its share of the development costs.
However, Rio will need to win over minority shareholders in Turquoise Hill, including US hedge fund Pentwater Capital Management. Under Canadian takeover rules, a majority of independent shareholders will need to vote in favour of the proposal.
Pentwater owns 10 per cent of Turquoise Hill and has launched a class-action lawsuit against Rio, accusing the global miner of concealing the real cause of delays that have dogged the project and blown the budget to $6.45bn, up from $5.3bn.
Baatar said Rio had not spoken to Pentwater about the offer, which he insisted had “absolutely nothing” to do with the lawsuit. “It’s a separate regulatory process that will follow its due course.”
He said Rio was not trying to take advantage of minority shareholders, pointing to the 30 per cent rise in the share price of Turquoise Hill since the company started underground caving at the end of January.
“I think we are doing the right thing,” he said. “The share price has appreciated 30 per cent in that period and we are offering another 30 per cent on top.
Pentwater could not immediately be reached for comment. The average price Pentwater paid for its stake in Turquoise Hill is reckoned to be just over C$30 a share.
In a statement, Turquoise Hill said it would establish a special committee of independent directors to review and consider the Rio proposal.
Dominic O’Kane, analyst at JPMorgan, said the deal was likely to be regarded by Rio investors as “generous” given the funding pressures facing Turquoise Hill. These include a $1.5bn rights issue that needs to be completed by the end of August.
Once the underground project is complete, Oyu Tolgoi will be one of the world’s biggest copper mines, with production in its early years of about 500,000 tonnes per year, just as demand for the metal increases because of the energy transition.
Rio reported a net cash position of more than $1.5bn at its annual results last month and can easily afford to swallow Turquoise Hill.
Oyu Tolgoi is one of several projects that its new chief executive Jakob Stausholm is trying to sort out as he looks to position Rio for the shift to a low-carbon economy.
Gapping down
Select Chinese ADRs showing weakness:
- LI -7.4%, BIDU -7.4%, XPEV -7.3%, JD -5.1%, BABA -5%, NIO -4%, ASHR -3.3%, .
Select oil/gas related names showing early weakness:
- USO -3.8%, HAL -2.4%, OIH -2.2%, SLB -2.2%, BP -1.9%, XLE -1.8%, XOM -1.5%, PSX -1.1%, SHEL -1%, .
Other news:
- NTRA -6.7% (executives to take compensation packages in stock instead of salary)
- SNY -3% (provides update on Phase 2 study evaluating amcenestrant in ER+/HER2- advanced or metastatic breast cancer; AMEERA-3 trial did not meet primary endpoint of improving progression-free survival)
- VLDR -2.8% (announces change to Board of Directors and provides update on stock ownership)
- NKLA -2.5% (files for 17,025,590 share common stock offering by selling shareholder)
Analyst comments:
- FUTU -11.2% (downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at CLSA)
- NOG -3.3% (downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Wells Fargo)
- OXY -3.3% (downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley)
- CVX -2.7% (downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley)
- COCO -1.2% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA Securities)
- TSN -1.2% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets)
Gapping up
News:
- TRQ +29% (Rio Tinto (RIO) makes all-cash proposal to acquire full ownership of Turquoise Hill)
- FLGC +5.3% (has signed a distribution agreement with Israel-based DNO Group to distribute the Mind Naturals brand in the Hong Kong region)
- MYGN +5% (receives FDA approval of BRACAnalysis CDx as a companion diagnostic for Lynparza in early breast cancer)
- LUNA +4.2% (acquires LIOS Sensing from NKT A/S's NKT Photonics for €20 million in cash; divested Luna Labs for $21 mln)
- CLNN +3.5% (Presents Updated Clinical Data from Phase 2 RESCUE-ALS and REPAIR trials and Preclinical ALS data at 2022 MDA Clinical & Scientific Conference)
- NVS +1.7% (reports new data reinforcing the benefit of Zolgensma)
- AZN +1.6% (AstraZeneca and Merck's Lynparza (olaparib) has been approved in the US for the adjuvant treatment of patients with germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) HER2-negative high-risk early breast cancer)
- BAC +1.5% (positive Barrons article)
- WFC +1.3% (positive Barrons article)
- C +1.2% (positive Barrons article)
- SCPL +1% (Enginge Capital discloses 8.1% stake; nominates two candidates for election to the Board)
- ECL +1% (announced its intent to repurchase $500 million of its shares in 2022)
- DNA +1% (to acquire Swiss-based strain development and optimization company FGen AG)
Analyst comments:
- DB +8.5% (upgraded to Hold from Sell at Berenberg)
- NOK +4.4% (upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James)
- FTV +1.8% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays)
- OLN +1.4% (upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Markets)
Research Calls
- Upgrades:
- BRP Group (BRP) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA Securities; tgt $31
- Carlsberg A/S (CABGY) upgraded to Hold from Sell at Berenberg
- Centennial Resource Development (CDEV) upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Wells Fargo; tgt $12
- Deutsche Bank (DB) upgraded to Hold from Sell at Berenberg
- Enova International (ENVA) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Janney; tgt $49
- Fortive (FTV) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays; tgt $75
- Helios Technologies (HLIO) upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Markets; tgt $90
- Helmerich & Payne (HP) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Seaport Research Partners; tgt $50
- LTC Properties (LTC) upgraded to Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $37
- Nokia (NOK) upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James; tgt $6.50
- Olin (OLN) upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Markets; tgt $64
- Tenaris (TS) upgraded to Peer Perform from Underperform at Wolfe Research; tgt raised to $43
- TFI International (TFII) upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform at Wolfe Research; tgt $115
- Unilever PLC (UL) upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Bernstein
- Downgrades:
- American Electric (AEP) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Seaport Research Partners
- Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan
- BCE Inc (BCE) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA Securities
- Campbell Soup (CPB) downgraded to Hold from Buy at R5 Capital
- Chevron (CVX) downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley; tgt $166
- Futu Holdings (FUTU) downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at CLSA; tgt lowered to $27
- Interpublic (IPG) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays; tgt lowered to $42
- IPG Photonics (IPGP) downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James
- Northern Oil & Gas (NOG) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Wells Fargo; tgt $34
- Occidental Petro (OXY) downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley; tgt $52
- Omnicom (OMC) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays; tgt lowered to $90
- OncoCyte (OCX) downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Markets
- Southwestern Energy (SWN) downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Wells Fargo; tgt raised to $10
- The Vita Coco Company (COCO) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA Securities; tgt lowered to $10
- Tyson Foods (TSN) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets; tgt lowered to $99
- USA Compression Partners (USAC) downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; tgt $17
- Others:
- Accenture (ACN) added to Tactical Outperform list at Evercore ISI
- Constellation Energy (CEG) initiated with a Buy at Goldman; tgt $62
- Energy Vault (NRGV) initiated with a Sell at Goldman; tgt $9
- Oportun Financial (OPRT) initiated with a Buy at Loop Capital; tgt $24
- Peloton (PTON) initiated with an Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; tgt $32
- Republic Bancorp (RBCAA) initiated with an Overweight at Piper Sandler
- Tyler Tech (TYL) initiated with an Equal Weight at Barclays; tgt $445