Broker tips: Petrofac, Centrica, Hargreaves Lansdown, St James's Place, Standard Life Aberdeen

Jefferies energy analyst team giveth and it taketh away on Monday, upgrading Petrofac and downgrading Centrica.

The broker feels Petrofac has become an "increasingly well-run business" providing "realistic expectations" within the tough oilfield service market.

Pointing to a net cash balance sheet "firmly in sight" and "realistic new awards" required for 2019, the analysts upgraded to 'buy'.

While Jefferies expects to see "good results" from Petrofac on 28 February, the broker trimmed its target price on the firm to 590p from 640p.

However, the same positives could not be seen over at British Gas owner Centrica, which Jefferies downgraded to 'hold' from 'buy'.

Jefferies sees material downside risk to Centrica's 2019-20 earnings, "borderline" credit metrics and "limited" market-to-market benefits of higher commodity prices in the medium-term.

"With this, we see a timely disposal of Centrica's 20% nuclear stake as critical to protect its balance sheet against another potential hit."

With a "weak" full year trading update from Centrica is expected in February, the target price was cut to 125p from its previous 170p standing.

Deutsche Bank downgraded a series of stocks on Monday as it cut its stance on European insurers to 'neutral' from 'overweight'.

As far as UK stocks are concerned, it downgraded Hargreaves Lansdown to 'sell' from 'hold' and cut the price target to 1,500p from 1,900p, citing a rich valuation and arguing that retail investment sentiment in the UK will remain subdued due to ongoing political uncertainty, which in turn is likely to weigh on HL's net inflow rate.

"We expect Brexit uncertainty to continue into 1Q19 as the UK prepares to leave the EU on 29th March. This is significant as the 1Q of the calendar year is usually the busiest for HL due to the UK tax year-end in April."

DB noted that HL already reported a 16% drop in year-on-year net flows for the three months to September and said it expects a further deterioration to this trend. It expects net flows to decline by around 22% to £1.4bn for the three-month period to December 2018 and 21% for the four months to April to £2.6bn.

The bank also downgraded St James's Place to 'hold' from 'buy' and reduced the price target to 1,090p from 1,280p, noting its exposure to both markets and UK political risk and also cut Standard Life Aberdeen to 'hold' from 'buy', with the target price trimmed to 295p from 405p.