Investing

Tuesday's Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Jon C. Ogg

Published: March 5, 2019 8:50 am

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 11:55 pm

Stocks were indicated to open marginally higher on Tuesday after Monday’s sell-off. After the Dow Jones industrials had initially risen well over 3,000 points from the lows in January, investors also should be considering how they want their assets positioned for the rest of 2019 and beyond.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week. Our goal is to find new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some of these analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while others cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

Additional commentary has been added on most of the daily analyst reports, along with trading history. The consensus analyst price targets and other valuation metrics are from the Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) sell-side research service.

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Tuesday, March 5, 2019.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) was started as Buy and assigned a $1,350 price target (versus a $1,153.42 prior close) at Needham.

Autodesk Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $184 at Argus.

Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) was reiterated as Overweight and the price target was raised to $83 from $80 at Morgan Stanley.

Bluebird Bio Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Leerink.

Central Garden & Pet Co. (NASDAQ: CENT) was maintained as Buy but the price target was lowered to $36 from $40 at Argus.

Ctrip.com International Ltd. (NASDAQ: CTRP) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the target price was raised to $45 from $33 at JPMorgan.

Freshpet Inc. (NASDAQ: FRPT) was maintained as Neutral but the target price was raised to $36 from $32 at Credit Suisse.

Harpoon Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: HARP) was started as Outperform and assigned a $23 price target (versus a $17.01 close) at Wedbush Securities.

Maxar Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: MAXR) was reiterated as Underperform and the price target was lowered to $3.93 from $5.88 at Credit Suisse.

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (NYSE: PPC) was started as Overweight with a $26 price target (versus a $19.75 close) at Stephens.

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Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was down 3.6% at $158.50 on Monday’s close ahead of its results. Robert W. Baird reiterated it as Outperform and raised the price target to $175 from $165. Wedbush reiterated its Outperform rating and raised its target to $192 from $174, and Macquarie reiterated its Outperform rating as well, raising its target to $188 from $174.

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (NYSE: SQM) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup. Its shares were indicated down 1.6% at $38.35 on Tuesday morning.

Spirit Aerosystems Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SPR) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Seaport Global.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) was reiterated as Underweight at Barclays and the price target was lowered to $192 from $210. Tesla closed down 3.2% at $285.36 on Monday and was indicated down another 1.7% at $280.50 on Tuesday. Its consensus target price was $332.01 ahead of this call, that the 52-week trading range is $244.59 to $387.46.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) was maintained as Equal Weight and the price target was lowered to $67 from $77 at Morgan Stanley. The stock closed down 2.8% at $64.74 on Monday but was indicated up 0.3% at $64.90 on Tuesday. Its consensus target price was $75.68.

Here are seven top tech stocks in which analysts keep raising their formal ratings or price targets.

We have broken down the newest stocks Goldman Sachs has added to its list of favorite stocks for 2019. Several of their picks already hit their 12-month targets in less than a month and only one went the wrong way.

Monday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades included Alector, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dillard’s, Foot Locker, Hasbro, Kraft Heinz, Vale, Xilinx, Zoetis and many more.