These are this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations covered by 24/7 Wall St.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank late on Thursday afternoon. The shares fell in the after-hours, but the implication of the downgrade was not big at all after looking at the notes.
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) was downgraded to Reduce from Buy at Nomura, just after Wells Fargo warned of severe downside earlier this week.
Cree Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham. Canaccord Genuity maintained its Buy rating but lowered the price target to $41 from $64.
CDW Corp. (NYSE: CDW) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James.
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Eldorado Gold Corp. (NYSE: EGO) was raised to Sector Perform from Underperform and was given a $9 price target (versus a $7.08 close) at RBC Capital Markets.
Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight with a $63 price target at Morgan Stanley.
Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE: NEM) was raised to Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC Capital Markets.
Proto Labs Inc. (NYSE: PRLB) was raised to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity after the recent pullback created an attractive entry point.
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (NYSE: PPC) was started with a Neutral rating and $33 price target (versus a $30.64 close) at Goldman Sachs.
Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was started with a Buy rating at Sterne Agee late on Thursday, and another call shows that it was started as Buy at Societe Generale as well.
Silver Spring Network Inc. (NYSE: SSNI) was started with an Outperform rating and was given a $13 price target (versus a $9.48 close) at Raymond James.
Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: SLXP) was raised to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse.
SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and was given a $43 price target (versus a $32.56 close) at J.P. Morgan.
If you missed Thursday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they included shares of AK Steel, Bank of America, Kinder Morgan, Pandora Media, Twitter, Valero Energy, Barrick Gold, Gentex and perhaps a dozen others.
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