The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that Scotia Capital analyst Ben Isaacson has downgraded his recommendation for Lithium Americas to "sector perform" from "sector outperform." The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Isaacson based his decision to lower his rating on a funding gap at the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada, lower price expectations for the metal and a lack of near-term catalysts. He slashed his share target by $8 to $7 (all figures U.S.). Analysts on average target the shares at $10.94. Mr. Isaacson says in a note: "We've made several revisions to our LAC model, which sees a material step down to equity value. First, and consistent with our Q4 reporting moves across our universe, we've reduced our deck to $20,000 per ton LCE [lithium carbonate equivalent] from $25,000 and have moved to a 10-per-cent discount rate from 8 per cent. Second, we've updated our NAV for the 30-per-cent cost overrun at Thacker (to $2.93-billion from $2.27-billion) plus some SG&A savings. The $660-million capex creep alone will cost LAC's NAV $4 per share. [And] third, we have updated our model for the DOE financing, with terms that are slightly better than expected."