Stocks were firm on Thursday morning during a shortened week that is full of economic reports. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning of the week for new ideas for our readers. Some of the analyst research reports cover stocks to buy, and some of them cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations from Wall Street firms.

Athlon Energy Inc. (NYSE: ATHL) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS. RBC Capital Markets has a Outperform rating but raised its target to $56 from $48 in the call.

Comerica Inc. (NYSE: CMA) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.

Cree Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) was raised to Outperform from Perform with a $59 price target (versus a $50.31 close) at Oppenheimer.

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Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) was reiterated as Buy with a target price of $170 at Argus.

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) was started with a Hold rating at Jefferies.

KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) assumed with a Neutral at Citigroup.

Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) was reiterated as Buy and the firm raised its target to $55 from $49 after the $49 price came up and based on better e-commerce sales expectations at Argus.

Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) was downgraded to Outperform from Buy and the target price is $58 (versus a $51.43 close) at Raymond James.

Regado Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ: RGDO) was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Wedbush, but that price target was slashed to $2 from $10 (versus a $6.76 close and $3.10 early indications). Whoops!

Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF) was started with a Neutral rating at Citigroup.

ResMed Inc. (NYSE: RMD) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and the price target is now $52 (versus a $50.50 close) at Deutsche Bank.

Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) was started as Buy with a $5 price target (versus a $3.97 close) at Jefferies.

Sterling Bancorp (NYSE: STL) was started with an Outperform rating and $14 price target at Raymond James.

SunTrust Banks Inc. (NYSE: STI) was started with a Neutral rating at Citigroup.

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In case you missed Wednesday’s analyst upgrades and downgrades, these included Alcatel-Lucent, FireEye, JDS Uniphase, SolarCity, SunPower, SunEdison and over a dozen more.

Tuesday’s upgrades and downgrades included Amicus Therapeutics, comScore, Expedia, Juniper Networks, Netflix, MannKind, Xerox and a dozen or so more. Also, here are nine analyst stock picks under $10 with massive upside potential.

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