TheStreet Ratings Top 10 Rating Changes

NEW YORK (TheStreet Ratings) -- Every trading day TheStreet Ratings' stock model reviews the investment ratings on around 4,700 U.S. traded stocks for potential upgrades or downgrades based on the latest available financial results and trading activity.

TheStreet Ratings released rating changes on 103 U.S. common stocks for week ending February 10, 2012. 80 stocks were upgraded and 23 stocks were downgraded by our stock model.

Rating Change #10

Atmel Corporation (ATML) has been downgraded by TheStreet Ratings from buy to hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its expanding profit margins and notable return on equity. 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 a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

• The revenue fell significantly faster than the industry average of 24.1%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 16.2%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
• 48.10% is the gross profit margin for ATMEL CORP which we consider to be strong. Regardless of ATML's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, ATML's net profit margin of 8.60% is significantly lower than the same period one year prior.
• Return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of major weakness within the corporation. When compared to other companies in the Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment industry and the overall market, ATMEL CORP's return on equity exceeds that of the industry average and significantly exceeds that of the S&P 500.
• ATMEL CORP has exprienced a steep decline in earnings per share in the most recent quarter in comparison to its performance from the same quarter a year ago. Earnings per share have declined over the last year. We anticipate that this should continue in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, ATMEL CORP reported lower earnings of $0.67 versus $0.90 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 10.4% in earnings ($0.60 versus $0.67).
• The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 85.3% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from $223.09 million to $32.86 million.

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Atmel Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, and markets a range of semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) products. The company has a P/E ratio of 9.4, above the average electronics industry P/E ratio of 9.2 and below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Atmel has a market cap of $4.53 billion and is part of the technology sector and electronics industry. Shares are up 24.7% year to date as of the close of trading on Thursday.

You can view the full Atmel Ratings Report or get investment ideas from our investment research center.