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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Apple, Barrick Gold, Corning, Groupon, Peabody, SolarCity and More

Stocks were mixed on Thursday after two days of losses. While sell-offs have been sharp and out of the blue, investors have time and again shown that they will buy stocks on weakness or stocks that offer value and are overlooked by the market. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning, on the hunt for 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 given 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. It includes a bullish and bearish case for each of the 30 DJIA stocks.

There is truly a huge number of analyst calls this Thursday as many Wall Street analysts are adjusting their 2015 outlooks on stocks and sectors. These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall Street analysts.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a $115 price target (versus a $109.80 close and a $122.74 consensus target price) at Mizuho Securities. Keep in mind we have seen two upgrades so far in 2015, with one analyst signaling a $130 price target.

Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE: ABX) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays. This is a week after both RBC Capital Markets and Macquarie downgraded Barrick as well.

Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $26 price target (versus a$23.25 close and a $22.01 consensus target) at J.P. Morgan.

Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) was raised to Hold from Sell with an $8 price target (versus a $7.37 close and a $8.29 consensus price target) at Evercore.

Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTU) was started as Equal Weight with a $10 price target (versus a $6.71 close and a $15.76 consensus price target) at Barclays.

SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY) was maintained as Buy but the price target was slashed to $64 from $87 (versus a $51.72 close and a $87.70 prior consensus price target) at Canaccord Genuity.

Other key analyst upgrades and downgrades on Thursday were as follows:

AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) was started as Equal Weight with a $7 price target (versus a $3.97 close) at Barclays.

Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: ANR) was started as Underweight with a $2 price target (versus a $1.19 close) at Barclays.

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) was started as Underweight with a $2 price target (versus a $1.24 close) at Barclays.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was cut to $52 from $56 (versus a $47.45 close) at Goldman Sachs.

BHP Billiton Ltd. (NYSE: BHP) was raised to Conviction Buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE: CNX) was started as Equal Weight at Barclays.

D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.

Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (NYSE: DPS) was raised to Neutral from Sell at Goldman Sachs.

ALSO READ: How Much Can BlackBerry Fetch in a Buyout?

Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) was raised to Neutral from Sell at Goldman Sachs.

Horizon Pharma PLC (NASDAQ: HZNP) was started as Buy with a $24 price target (versus a $14.02 close) at UBS.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $97 price target (versus a $104.00 close) at Goldman Sachs. Here was our own 2015 bullish and bearish outlook for J&J.

Kraft Foods Inc. (NASDAQ: KRFT) was maintained as Buy but was added to the prized Conviction Buy list at Goldman Sachs.

Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE) was started as Overweight at Barclays.

Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $80 price target (versus a $83.42 close) at Goldman Sachs.

SAP A.G. (NYSE: SAP) was raised to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.

ALSO READ: 2 Analysts See Facebook Rising to $100 or Higher

Southern Copper Corp. (NYSE: SCCO) was started as Overweight at Barclays.

Steel Dynamics Inc. (NASDAQ: STLD) was started as Overweight with a $30 price target (versus a $17.25 close) at Barclays.

SunEdison Inc. (NYSE: SUNE) was maintained as Buy but the price target was slashed to $26 from $36 (versus a $20.89 close) at Canaccord Genuity.

United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) was started as Equal Weight at Barclays.

Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight and the price target was cut to $45 from $54 (versus a $41.37 close) at Barclays. This is just a day after J.P. Morgan and Pacific Crest also downgraded the stock.

ALSO READ: Analyst Sees Deep Value Building in Solar

In case you missed Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in ARM Holdings, CDW, Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy, Foot Locker, GameStop, Garmin, Red Hat, Verizon Communications and a dozen more.

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