The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday, Nov. 4, edition that BMO analyst Stephen MacLeod downgraded Gildan Activewear to "market perform" from "outperform." The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. MacLeod trimmed his share target to $38.44 (Canadian) from $42.33 (Canadian). Analysts on average target the shares at $42.50 (Canadian). Mr. MacLeod says, "While we continue to believe that Gildan is well positioned to achieve incremental growth in Printwear as well as retail shelf space gains in Branded Apparel, we came away from Q3/17 with the view that persistent retail industry headwinds (lower traffic trends, retailer destocking) will overshadow Gildan's other pockets of growth, reducing earnings visibility at least in the near term and leading to the shares being range-bound." On Thursday, the Montreal-based apparel marker reported quarterly earnings per share of 53 U.S. cents, exceeding the projections of both the analyst (50 U.S. cents) and the Street (51 U.S. cents). Sales increased 4 per cent year over year to $716-million (U.S.), below the consensus estimate of $750-million (U.S.), while adjusted EBITDA of $168-million (U.S.) beat the consensus by $5-million (U.S.).