Goldman Sachs analyst Joe Ritchie downgraded Illinois Tool Works (ITW) to Sell from Neutral and lowered his price target for the shares to $144 from $147. Given the company's "deteriorating fundamentals," there is downside risk to consensus estimates and its valuation premium relative to Large Cap Defensive peers "appears too high," Ritchie tells investors in a research note. The analyst believes growth in all of Illinois Tool Works' segments could turn negative in Q4 while the return to greater than 2% growth in 2020 "could prove optimistic." Further, after years of transforming the cost structure and driving meaningful margin expansion, the company "has less levers to pull to expand margins," says Ritchie. The analyst continues to view Honeywell (HON) as the best Large Cap Defensive to own.

Stifel raised the firm's price target on Illinois Tool Works to $259 from $258 and keeps a Hold rating on the shares. In a Q1 preview for the diversified industrials group, the firm says it is "generally fairly neutral on stocks under our coverage" with an expectation that companies will be seeing improving demand fundamentals with improving short cycle and waning inventory destocking, offset by the strong performance of the stocks during the quarter. In general, the firm is expecting management commentary to be more positive on the second half, while maintaining a relatively cautious approach to guidance, the analyst tells investors in the preview.