Investing

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: ARM, CDW, Chesapeake, Garmin, Red Hat, Verizon and More

Stocks were lower on Wednesday after giving up a big gain on Tuesday. What has been seen repeatedly is that investors will buy stocks on weakness, or they will buy stocks that offer value and are overlooked by the market. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new investment and trading ideas for its readers. Some analyst calls cover stocks to buy, while other reports cover stocks to sell or avoid.

We recently have been giving the S&P 500 price targets from major strategists, but now we have our own DJIA target modeled showing why the DJIA will hit 19,142 in 2015 — and it has a bullish and bearish case for each of the 30 DJIA stocks.

These are this Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) was raised Market Perform from Underperform at Bernstein.

BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) was raised Buy from Neutral with a $400 price target (versus a $347.98 close) at Goldman Sachs.

CDW Corp. (NASDAQ: CDW) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a $36 price target (versus a $36.28 close) at Goldman Sachs.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight with a $13 price target (versus a $17.85 close) at Barclays.

Datawatch Corp. (NASDAQ: DWCH) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and the price target was slashed to $6.50 from $12 at Canaccord Genuity.

ALSO READ: Big Telco Dividends: Windstream and Frontier Raised to Buy

Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $54 (versus a $58.89 close) at Barclays.

Foot Locker Inc. (NYSE: FL) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $47 price target (versus a $55.63 close) at Goldman Sachs.

GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) was raised to Outperform from Underperform at Pacific Crest. Janney Capital Markets maintained its Buy rating, but lowered its price target by $1 to $44.

Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) was raised to Sector Perform from Underperform at Pacific Crest.

Halcon Resources Corp. (NYSE: HK) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight and the price target was set at $0.50 (versus a $1.49 close) at Barclays.

KB Home (NYSE: KBH) was down handily after earnings on Tuesday. So far on Wednesday we have seen it downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna and to Neutral from Overweight at J.P.Morgan.

Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays.

ALSO READ: Big Apple Analyst Upgrade

Monster Beverage Corp. (NASDAQ: MNST) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen.

Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $70 price target (versus a $67.44 close) at Goldman Sachs.

SandRidge Energy Inc. (NYSE: SD) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight with a $0.50 price target (versus a $1.34 close) at Barclays.

Tech Data Corp. (NASDAQ: TECD) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $49 price target (versus a $59.69 close) at Goldman Sachs.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Evercore.

WisdomTree Investments Inc. (NASDAQ: WETF) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest.

In case you missed Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of Amazon.com, Apple, Best Buy, Costco, Dynegy, HP, Kinder Morgan, SunPower and a dozen or so more.

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