Top of the Street: Merlin Properties, ACS, Endeavour Mining, DHL

A round-up of notable broker activity this morning from Europe's top-ranked* analysts:

** Jefferies upgrades Merlin Properties MRL.MC from "hold" to "buy", saying that headwinds are now priced in and the underlying data centre growth remains intact

INITIATIONS AND REINSTATEMENTS

** JPMorgan initiates its coverage on Spanish builder ACS ACS.MC with an "overweight" rating saying data centre fears "obscure a compelling growth and valuation story"

** RBC initiates its coverage on DSV DSV.CO and Kuehne + Nabel KNIN.S with "sector perform" ratings, saying the companies are high quality stocks with attractive total return profits, generating the bulk of their earnings in freight forwarding

** RBC also starts DHL DHLn.DE with an "outperform" rating, citing forecasts ahead of consensus driven by DHL Express and better that it expected volume outlook despite deglobalisation concerns

** Goldman Sachs initiates coverage on Endeavour Mining PLC EDV.L with a "buy" rating, saying gold has remained resilient despite real-rate backdrop and adding the stock offers strongest organic growth and FCF yield combination

(*Analyst rankings from Thomson Reuters StarMine. The scale is from 1-star to 5-star with 5 being the best. Analysts are ranked on earnings accuracy as well as relative performance of recommendations over trailing 12-month & 24-month periods.)