Stocks were lower on Friday after some concerns that April consumer prices might allow the Federal Reserve to justify rate hikes. Still, the major stock indexes are barely off of all-time highs. Investors keep proving that they will buy their favorite stocks on weakness. 24/7 Wall St. review dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new ideas for traders and investors. Some of the analyst calls cover stocks to buy, while others cover stocks to sell or avoid.
These are this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.
BHP Billiton Ltd. (NYSE: BHP) was raised to Hold from Sell at Investec (overseas).
Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) was started as Positive with a price target of $53 (versus a $43.57 close) at Susquehanna.
BP PLC (NYSE: BP) was raised to Neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan.
Conn’s Inc. (NASDAQ: CONN) was Downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer.
H&R Block Inc. (NYSE: HRB) was started as Overweight with a price target of $38 (versus a $32.12 close) Piper Jaffray.
Horizon Pharma PLC (NASDAQ: HZNP) was started as Outperform with a $37 price target (versus a $30.55 close) at Leerink.
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Ingersoll-Rand PLC (NYSE: IR) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $86 price target (versus a $69.52 close) at Argus.
Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was reiterated as Outperform but the price target went from $600 to $700 (versus a $623.02 close) at RBC Capital Markets.
Otonomy Inc. (NASDAQ: OTIC) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight with a price target cut to $30 from $42 at JPMorgan.
Qorvo Inc. (NASDAQ: QRVO) was started as Buy with a $98 price target (versus a $81.26 close) at Goldman Sachs.
Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was reiterated as Buy but its price target was raised from $80 to $85 at Needham.
Sharps Compliance Corp. (NASDAQ: SMED) was started as Buy with a price target of $8 (versus a $5.61 close) at Stifel.
Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS) was started as Neutral with a price target of $108 (versus a $103.89 close) at Goldman Sachs.
Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: SGYP) was started as Buy with a price target of $11 (versus a $4.29 close) at Canaccord Genuity.
Total S.A. (NYSE: TOT) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan.
Vascular Biogenics Ltd. (NASDAQ: VBLT) was started as Buy with a $13 price target (versus a $5.05 close) at Roth Capital.
VeriFone Systems Inc. (NYSE: PAY) was started as Outperform at Imperial Capital.
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In case you missed Thursday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of Alibaba, Mobileye, NetApp, Nike, Salesforce.com, Stratasys and over a dozen more.
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