Solazyme downgraded to “Market Perform” after stock’s rally overshoots price targets.

In California, Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov downgraded Solazyme to Market Perform, for technical reasons, as the stock has rallied to within a few percentage points of the RJ estimate of its discounted cash flow. “Following this rating change, Solazyme becomes our third Market Perform-rated stock in the biofuel arena. The key difference is that our rating on our other two Market Performs – Amyris and Codexis – reflects more fundamental concerns about their business models, as opposed to valuation. We continue to have Outperform ratings on Ceres, Gevo and KiOR. All of these companies are in the pre-earnings stage, and all except Codexis have an ongoing operating cash burn for the time being. We project that the first year of sustained profitability will be 2014 for KiOR and Solazyme; and 2015 for Amyris, Ceres, Codexis, and Gevo,” Molchanov writes. A copy of his report can be downloaded here.