TSC Ratings' Updates: Herman Miller

The debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46 is relatively high when compared with the industry average, suggesting a need for better debt level management. Along with the unfavorable debt-to-equity ratio, AMT maintains a poor quick ratio of 0.92, which illustrates the inability to avoid short-term cash problems.

AMT had been rated a buy since April 28, 2008.

Signet Jewelers(SIG Quote) has been initiated at hold. Signet Jewelers Limited together with its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty jewelry retailer in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, reasonable valuation levels and good cash flow from operations. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including feeble growth in the company's earnings per share, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity.

SIG's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.29 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels. To add to this, SIG has a quick ratio of 1.50, which demonstrates the ability of the company to cover short-term liquidity needs.

Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 9.0%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenue has slightly dropped by 2.3%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.

Current return on equity is lower than its return on equity from the same quarter one year prior. This is a clear sign of weakness within the company. In comparison to the other companies in the specialty retail industry and the overall market, SIG's return on equity is significantly below that of the industry average and is below that of the S&P 500.

The gross profit margin for SIG is currently extremely low, coming in at 10.90%. It has decreased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of 2.50% trails that of the industry average.

Additional ratings changes from September 18 are listed below.

Ticker	Company	Current	Change	Previous
AMT	American Tower Corp.	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
BGS	B&G Foods Inc.	SELL	Downgrade	HOLD
CFNB	California First National Bancorp	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
DOX	Amdocs Ltd.	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
EXXI	Energy XXI Ltd.	SELL	Initiated
GFED	Guaranty Federal Banchares	SELL	Downgrade	HOLD
ICE	Intercontinental Exchange Inc.	SELL	Downgrade	HOLD
KFY	Korn/Ferry International	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
LNCE	Lance Inc.	BUY	Upgrade	HOLD
MEA	Metalico Inc.	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
MKSI	MKS Instruments Inc.	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
MLHR	Herman Miller Inc.	BUY	Upgrade	HOLD
MNDO	Mind C.T.I. Ltd.	SELL	Downgrade	HOLD
NRGY	Inergy LP.	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
PBH	Prestige Brands Holdings	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
PVR	Penn Virginia Resource Partners	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
SCMP	Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc.	SELL	Downgrade	HOLD
SIG	Signet Jewelers Ltd.	HOLD	Initiated
TXT	Textron Inc.	HOLD	Downgrade	BUY
VIA	VIACOM Inc.	SELL	Downgrade	HOLD

Each business day, TheStreet.com Ratings updates its ratings on the stocks it covers. The proprietary ratings model projects a stock's total return potential over a 12-month period, including both price appreciation and dividends. Buy, hold or sell ratings designate how the Ratings group expects these stocks to perform against a general benchmark of the equities market and interest rates.

While the ratings model is quantitative, it uses both subjective and objective elements. For instance, subjective elements include expected equities market returns, future interest rates, implied industry outlook and company earnings forecasts. Objective elements include volatility of past operating revenue, financial strength and company cash flows.

However, the rating does not incorporate all of the factors that can alter a stock's performance. For example, it doesn't always factor in recent corporate or industry events that could affect the stock price, nor does it include recent technology developments and competitive dynamics that may affect the company.

For those reasons, we believe a rating alone cannot tell the whole story, and that it should be part of an investor's overall research.