The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, Feb. 12, edition that CIBC World Markets analyst Robert Sedran moved his rating for Sun Life Financial ($37.24) to "sector outperformer" from "sector performer," touting its "strong" balance sheet, "resilient" adjusted earnings and the potential for previous acquisitions to contribute to growth. The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Sedran trimmed his share target by $2 to $44. Analysts on average target the shares at $46.44. Mr. Sedran says: "We do not change our ratings frequently and the decision to upgrade Sun Life was not taken lightly -- especially in a very tough market environment and against the backdrop of very good, but not uniformly positive, results this quarter. However, the earnings have shown more than resilience in 2015, with growth of 29 per cent while the shares are down 10 per cent over the last year. We do not forecast anywhere near that level going forward. ... We expect volatility to continue in the near term and this is hardly an attempt to call the bottom on a stock that is down 12 per cent so far in 2016. It is, rather, a belief in the company's longer-term prospects."