Broker tips: LSE, Hargreaves Lansdown, British Land, Friends Life

Financial services group London Stock Exchange’s steady earnings growth, in an environment where most of its peers have suffered earnings downgrades, has seen its stock significantly outperform its peers.

Analysts at Citigroup expect the earnings momentum from the company’s high-growth businesses, such as LCH Clearnet and FTSE, to continue. Meanwhile, the group's strategic review should see LSE deciding to sell Russell’s investment management business, with the remainder of the unit set to be earnings enhancing. Citi’s recommendation has been lifted to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’.

After upgrading their rating on Hargreaves Lansdown just last month, analysts at Citigroup have cut the stock from 'neutral' to 'sell' following the recent run in the share price.

"We upgraded from 'sell' to 'neutral' last month. Recently, however, shares have rallied strongly and there is now 17% downside to our target price," the bank said on Monday, causing the stock to drop sharply. "We move back to 'sell' but make no change to […] forecasts or 830p target price."

Lower UK bond, or Gilt, yields have prompted broker Liberum to lift its net asset value (NAV) forecasts for UK property groups British Land and Land Securities.

However, with the stocks already up 20% over 2014 so far, the analysts reckon that these NAV upgrades are already in the price. They said that stock valuations now sit close to NAV, while returns look to peak in 2015. Liberum has downgraded its rating for British Land from 'buy' to 'hold' and has left Land Securities at 'hold'.

Canaccord Genuity has lifted its target price for insurance firm Friends Life from 340p to 400p and repeated its 'buy' call, saying that the £5.6bn takeover offer from rival Aviva is a "good price" for shareholders.

While they have lifted their target price to equal the possible offer, analysts said they see potential further upside from this level when more details about synergies from the deal are known.