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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Apple, Gap, Intel, J.C. Penney, Kinder Morgan and More

Stocks were selling off marginally on Thursday morning after the Fed minutes prompted a rally on Wednesday. Yet again, investors proved how willing they are to buy overlooked or oversold stocks when they can. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of brokerage firm analyst research reports each morning of the week for new investment and trading ideas for our readers. Some analyst reports cover stocks to buy, but some also cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades featured by 24/7 Wall St. We have five key calls on the first page, followed by 17 other summaries on the second page.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was raised to Outperform from Perform with a $115 price target at Oppenheimer.

Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) fell on news that Glenn Murphy was resigning as CEO. Shares of Gap have been downgraded to Market Perform at Wells Fargo, to Neutral at Janney Capital Markets and to Neutral at Sterne Agee.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) was reiterated as Buy and as a Top Pick at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The firm has a $43 price objective maintained, on the heels of mixed PC sales data from Gartner for the third quarter.

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) was maintained as Neutral but its earnings estimates were cut at Sterne Agee after its analyst day.

Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI) was reiterated as Outperform and with a $48 price target at Credit Suisse, based on dividend growth and the notion that it will require little new equity.

ALSO READ: 5 Top Chip Stocks That Could Surge in the Fourth Quarter

Other key analyst upgrades and downgrades were as follows:

Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) was reiterated as Buy with an $85 price target at Argus after its analyst meeting, although the firm did hedge by noting that the high valuation presents some risk even though the business model transition is considered sound.

Allergan Inc. (NYSE: AGN) was started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.

ARC Group Worldwide (NASDAQ: ARCW) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and the price target was slashed to $15 from $28 at Canaccord Genuity.

Church & Dwight Co. Inc. (NYSE: CHD) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets.

Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform by BMO Capital Markets.

Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) was started as Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (NYSE: DD), or just DuPont, was started as Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT) was started with an Outperform rating at JMP Securities, and the $30 target price compares to a close of $23.92.

LivePerson Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $17 from $13 (versus a $13.65 close) at Credit Suisse.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) was started with a Market Perform with a $48 price target (versus a $46.78 close) at BMO Capital Markets.

Randgold Resources Ltd. (NASDAQ: GOLD) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at HSBC Securities.

RingCentral Inc. (NYSE: RNG) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a 414 price target (versus a $12.10 close) at Goldman Sachs.

ALSO READ: 9 High-Yield Dividends for Risk Takers

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Merrill Lynch.

Tesoro Corp. (NYSE: TSO) was started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) was started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD) was downgraded to Reduce from an already cautious Neutral rating by Nomura.

Vulcan Materials Co. (NYSE: VMC) was started as Buy with a $70 price objective at Merrill Lynch.

In case you missed Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of ADTRAN, Apollo Global, Gluu Mobile, KKR, Cogent Communications, GoPro, National Oilwell Varco and more.

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