ITT Educational Services (NYSE:ESI) was downgraded from Neutral to Sell at Citigroup today. The stock closed yesterday at $15.19 on volume of 2.2 million shares, above average daily volume of 814,000.

ITT Educational Services (NYSE:ESI) has potential upside of 82.5% based on a current price of $15.19 and analysts' consensus price target of $27.73. The stock should run into initial resistance at its 50-day moving average (MA) of $18.49 and subsequent resistance at its 200-day MA of $41.37.

ITT Educational Services, Inc. provides technology-oriented postsecondary degree programs in the United States. The Company's institutes offer associate, bachelor, and master degree programs, as well as non-degree diploma programs.

Over the past year, ITT Educational Services has traded in a range of $14.91 to $77.00 and closed yesterday at $15.19, 2% above that low. Over the past week, the 200-day moving average (MA) has gone down 1.8% while the 50-day MA has declined 3%.

SmarTrend recommended that its subscribers protect gains by selling shares of ITT Educational Services on September 25th, 2012 by issuing a Downtrend alert when the shares were trading at $34.52. Since that call, shares of ITT Educational Services have fallen 56.0%. We are now looking for when a new Uptrend will commence and will alert SmarTrend subscribers in real time.