UPDATE 1-Raymond James downgrades several U.S. homebuilders

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Nov 13 (Reuters) - Raymond James downgraded several U.S. homebuilders to "market perform" from "outperform," a day after U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the government will no longer focus on buying toxic mortgage assets, but will concentrate on helping financial institutions and boosting consumer credit markets.

"We note our prior opinion was in many ways based on the encouragement of Paulson's original intent to focus the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on fixing housing first," analyst Paul Puryear said and downgraded homebuilders Centex Corp (CTX.N), Lennar Corp (LEN.N) and Pulte Homes (PHM.N).

The analyst also downgraded St. Joe Co (JOE.N), Standard Pacific Corp (SPF.N), Ryland Group Inc (RYL.N) and Toll Brothers Inc (TOL.N).

While the banking system, brokerages, insurance companies and auto makers may all benefit from the $700 billion financial bailout fund, very little progress is being made towards stabilizing the rapidly depreciating U.S. residential home prices, analyst Puryear said.

"Absent the potential for significant and direct government intervention in the housing and mortgage markets in the very near term, housing fundamentals are poised to take another leg down," the analyst wrote.

With home sales falling to all-time low levels, further tightening in mortgage lending and builders facing tougher competition with banks unloading heavily discounted foreclosures into the market, the U.S. consumer and homebuyer have gone into a state of shock, Puryear added.

Shares of Centex were down more than 13 percent at $7.83, Lennar shares were down more than 15 percent at $5.33 and Pulte Homes shares were down more than 10 percent at $7.82 in midday trade on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bangalore; Editing by Himani Sarkar)