JinkoSolar Stock Downgraded After Ugly Day

It's not surprising to see bearish notes pour in on SBUX, given its technical performance

Josh Selway

Aug 22, 2017 at 9:22 AM

Analysts are weighing in on coffee stock Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX), solar energy issue JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE:JKS), and global nutrition company Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF). Here's a quick roundup of today's bearish brokerage notes on shares of SBUX, JKS, and HLF.

More Analysts Cut Down Starbucks Stock

Starbucks stock saw its price target cut to $62 from $68 at Morgan Stanley, and even this represents a substantial premium to last night's finish at $53.15. SBUX shares have yet to recover from last month's bear gap, continuing to look up at their 10- and 20-day moving averages. As such, the coffee giant could still see more bearish analyst attention come through. Specifically, 15 of 20 covering brokerages say to buy Starbucks, even though it's underperformed the S&P 500 Index (SPX) by almost 17 percentage points over the past three months.

JinkoSolar's 50-Day Contains Pullback

JinkoSolar was one of several alternative energy stocks to get hammered yesterday, with the shares shedding 5.1% to trade at $23.70. Credit Suisse responded by downgrading the equity to "neutral" from "outperform."

But even considering yesterday's drop, JKS remains 55.6% higher year-to-date, and yesterday bottomed right at its 50-day moving average -- a level that's acted as solid support this year. Still, short sellers love this stock, with these bearish bets increasing 11.1% over the past two reporting periods. Short interest on JinkoSolar now stands at the highest point since early 2002.

Citigroup Not Impressed by HLF's Big Day

Herbalife stock had a big day yesterday, but Citigroup this morning trimmed its price target to $71 from $72. The shares were last seen trading at $68.04, up 41.3% in 2017. Options traders have remained bearish, though. HLF has a 10-day put/call volume ratio of 4.38 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX). This ranks in the 99th annual percentile, pointing toward a very unusual bias for long puts.

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