Friday January 11, 01:27 PM
American Express 4Q charge, outlook prompts downgrades; shares slide
NEW YORK (Thomson Financial) - Shares of American Express (NYSE: AXP - news) were trading sharply lower in premarket trading Friday, after
financial and travel-related services company's announcement that it would take a $440 million fourth-quarter charge because of slower spending by its credit card customers prompted a number of negative actions by Wall Street analysts.
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - news) downgraded the stock to neutral from buy, and removed it from the firm's conviction buy list. Analyst James Fotheringham said he is concerned that the company's 2008 outlook may assume an 'overly-optimistic' economic scenario.
His 12-month price target was cut to $55 from $81.
AmEx's stock, a component of the Dow industrials, was down 7.8% at $45.12 ahead of the open. That's the lowest price seen during regular trading hours since May 2005.
Friedman Billings Ramsey lowered its rating on the stock to underperform from market perform and its stock price target to $40 from $66. Standard & Poor's cut its equity rating to hold from buy, and its price target to $60 from $73.
Elsewhere, Thomas Weisel Partners (TWPG - news) cut its price target on AmEx shares to $61 from $75, Citigroup (NYSE: C - news) lowered its target to $56 from $61, and Morgan Stanley (SPU - news) slashed its target to $44 from $50.
Tomi Kilgore
tk1
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