TSC Ratings' Updates: Alaska Air

TSC Ratings provides exclusive stock, ETF and mutual fund ratings and commentary based on award-winning, proprietary tools. Its "safety first" approach to investing aims to reduce risk while seeking solid outperformance on a total return basis.

The following ratings changes were generated on Thursday, May 14.

We've downgraded Alaska Air Group(ALK) from hold to sell, driven by its generally weak debt management, disappointing return on equity and poor profit margins. The company's debt-to-equity ratio is 2.5 but is below the industry average. Return on equity has decreased compared with the year-ago quarter. Gross profit margin of 17.2% has increased. Revenue fell by 11.6%. Shares are down 23.1% over the past year, in part reflecting the market's overall decline. The fact that the stock is now selling for less than others in its industry in relation to its current earnings is not reason enough to justify a buy rating at this time.

We've upgraded First Bancorp(FNLC) from hold to buy, driven by its increase in net income, expanding profit margins, good cash flow from operations, relatively strong performance when compared with the S&P 500 during the past year and notable return on equity. Although no company is perfect, currently we do not see any significant weaknesses which are likely to detract from'

Net income rose 3.8%, from $3.6 million in the year-ago quarter to 43.7 million. The 60.4% gross profit margin increased from the year-ago quarter, and net operating cash flow rose 278.1% to $7.3 million. Revenue fell by 11.5%, but earnings per share were stable.

We've downgraded Lazard(LAZ) from hold to sell, driven by its deteriorating net income, generally weak debt management, disappointing return on equity, poor profit margins and decline in the stock price during the past year.