The market keeps showing ambitions to go higher, and investors are looking for ideas on stocks to buy, stocks to sell and stocks to avoid. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of Wall Street analyst research reports each day looking for fresh research ideas that can bring you profits, income and savings. These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall Street research firms.
Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL) is apparently in good hands as it was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Anheuser-Busch InBev S.A./N.V. (NYSE: BUD) was downgraded to Reduce from an already cautious Neutral rating over at Nomura.
ASM International N.V. (NASDAQ: ASMI) was raised to Buy from Neutral by Goldman Sachs.
Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) was maintained as Buy but was removed from the prized Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.
Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie.
Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMY) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at J.P. Morgan.
Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight based on valuation at Morgan Stanley; shares are indicated down more than 2% around the $300 mark.
Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) was started as Neutral with a $925 price target (versus $981.56 close) by Janney.
Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight based on valuation at Morgan Stanley; shares are indicated down 1% or so.
Weatherford International Ltd. (NYSE: WFT) is trading down about 5% after two downgrades following news of its CEO departing the company after its turnaround strategy was deemed incomplete. Raymond James and Wells Fargo both downgraded this company to Market Perform on the news.
Wendy’s Co. (NYSE: WEN) was raised to Buy from Hold and given a $10 price target.
Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight at Evercore Partners.
Merrill Lynch has issued a report showing that it sees a huge contrarian value developing in the global mining and steel companies.
Deutsche Bank analysts have recommended major technology stocks to buy before year-end as they are expected to rally.
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