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A Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) logo is seen on Bay Street in the heart of the financial district in Toronto, January 22, 2015.MARK BLINCH/Reuters

Inside the Market's roundup of some of today's key analyst actions. This file will be updated often during the trading day so check back for new details.

Barclays downgraded Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto Dominion Bank and Laurentian Bank to "underweight" ratings from equalweight."

Analyst John Aiken said a slowing domestic banking market will limit earnings and valuation upside.

"Despite recent weakness in the performance of the Canadian banks, we see little additional upside potential and believe that slower-than-anticipated economic growth will weigh on the earnings growth and valuations of the group," Mr. Aiken said in a research note. "As we have lowered our earnings estimates to reflect an even greater moderation in demand for consumer borrowing than we had previously priced in, we have also lowered our target multiples to reflect our revised growth forecast, resulting in an average 8 per cent."

"From our standpoint, the surprise reduction in the overnight rate by the Bank of Canada is a net negative for the banks. We believe that the action from the central bank implies lower economic growth than is currently reflected in the market. Further, we do not anticipate a significant uptick in consumer loan demand and believe that incremental margin compression is likely. As a result, our reduced estimates imply low single-digit earnings growth for 2015. The near-term benefit to the Canadian banks from the rate cut is that any sizeable increase in credit losses could conceivably be delayed until 2016," he said.

He says the sharp decline in the price of oil will be a negative for the country overall, with the potential for recession in Alberta offsetting any of the benefits, such as lower gasoline prices.

He cut his price target on Bank of Montreal to $75 from $82; on Royal Bank to $77 from $80; on TD Bank to $53 from $57; and kept his target on Laurentian Bank at $48.

Read more on the downgrade from The Globe and Mail's David Berman.

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Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. sank 7 per cent on Thursday after announcing another dividend cut less than two months removed from the reduction in its quarterly payout in early December.

The stock has tanked, down more than 60 per cent in the past three months amid the collapse in crude oil prices.

However, Veritas Research has warmed to the name, telling investors to "look to the asset not the yield."

Its core asset, Syncrude, is a joint venture in which Canadian Oil Sands has the largest ownership stake. According to analyst Sam La Bell, the firm's cash flows will rebound sharply if crude oil manages to get back above $70 per barrel (U.S.).

"As a result, investors who can look past COS' lousy yield have the luxury of considering Syncrude's longer-term value," he said. "If oil prices recover as we expect, COS should easily be back to distributing 65 cents per share by 2016 and 72 cents per share by 2017, which would give shares a sizeable lift over their current price."

Mr. La Bell upgraded the stock to "buy" from "sell" and maintained a $10 (Canadian) price target.

But the same stock was downgraded at Macquarie to "underperform" from "neutral" with a price target of $6.50 (Canadian).

The average analyst price target is $8.65, according to Bloomberg data.

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Canaccord Genuity is upping its price targets on the Canadian airlines in light of the continued softness in crude oil prices, which reduces the cost of these firms' biggest operating expense: jet fuel.

"The fuel price benefit is likely to be partially offset by the weaker Canadian dollar, but the fuel price effect looks likely to be, by far, the larger impact," said analyst David Tyerman.

The airlines have the potential to post "surprisingly strong results in the next couple of quarters" thanks to this tailwind, he said.

Mr. Tyerman raised his estimate for adjusted and diluted earnings per share for Air Canada to $2.90 (Canadian) from $2.25 for 2015, and to $3.29 from $2.71 for WestJet Airlines Ltd. He indicated that these forecasts were conservative ones.

The analyst hiked his price target on Air Canada to $17 from $16 and to $38 from $35 for WestJet while maintaining "buy" ratings on both stocks.

The average analyst price targets are $18.22 and $39.96, respectively.

In other analyst actions:

Rogers Communications was upgraded to "buy" from "market perform" at Cormark Securities. The target price is $49 (Canadian).

Dorel Industries was downgraded to "sector perform" from "outperform" at RBC Dominion Securities. The target price is $40 (Canadian).

Exco Technologies was raised to "outperform" from "market perform" at BMO Nesbitt Burns. The target price is $14.50 (Canadian).

SunPower was raised to "outperform" from "sector perform" at RBC Dominion Securities. The target price is $36 (U.S.).

Boston Scientific was raised to "outperform" from "market perform" at BMO Nesbitt Burns. The target price is $18 (U.S.).

Visa was downgraded to "market perform" from "outperform" at FBR Capital Markets. The target price is $260 (U.S.).

Boston Scientific Corp. was raised to "outperform" from "market perform" at BMO Capital Markets with a target price of $18 (U.S.) per share.

Diageo PLC  was downgraded to "market perform" from "outperform" at Sanford Bernstein with a target price of $135.90 (U.S.) per share.

VeriFone Systems Inc. was raised to "positive" from "neutral" at Susquehanna with a target price of $38 (U.S.) per share.

QLogic Corp. was raised to "outperform" from "market perform" at BMO Capital Markets with a target price of $15.50 (U.S.) per share.

Zimmer Holdings Inc. was raised to "outperform" from "neutral" at Robert Baird with a target price of $125 (U.S.) per share. But Jefferies downgraded the stock to "hold" from "buy" with a target price of $119 per share and Needham & Co. downgraded the stock to "buy" from "strong buy" with a target price of $131 per share.

With files from Bloomberg

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