Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: AT&T, Capstone, ConAgra, Diamond Offshore, Hecla Mining and More

Investing

July 2, 2015 8:35 am

Last Updated: July 2, 2015 8:35 am

Stocks were indicated slightly higher on Thursday ahead of the jobs report. Regardless of how the jobs report went and regardless of how Greece turns out this weekend, the trend that has prevailed for more than three years is that investors have literally bought every single pullback. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning of the week to find new trading and investing ideas for its readers. Some of these analyst calls cover stocks to buy, but some calls are about stocks to sell or avoid.

These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) was raised to Outperform with a $40 price target (versus a $35.57 close) at Cowen. On Wednesday afternoon we featured how it seems every AT&T analyst is raising targets and ratings into the DirecTV merger. AT&T’s 52-week trading range is $32.07 to $37.48.

Capstone Turbine Corp. (NASDAQ: CPST) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Securities. This was after several recent target price cuts. Capstone closed at $0.40 and it has a 52-week range of $0.37 to $1.53.

ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $50 price target (versus a $44.60 close) at Morgan Stanley. This is just a day after Merrill Lynch raised its rating to Neutral from Underperform. ConAgra has a consensus price target of $44.40 and a 52-week range of $29.90 to $44.64.

Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE: DO) was reiterated as Underperform and the price target was cut to $20 from $24 (versus a $25.34 close) at FBR Capital Markets. Diamond Offshore has a consensus price target of $25.72 and a 52-week range of $24.93 to $50.50.

Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE: HL) was started as Sector Perform, but it was given a $3.25 price target (versus a $2.44 close after a 7% drop on Wednesday), at RBC Capital Markets. Hecla’s consensus price target is $2.92, and it has a 52-week range of $2.00 to $3.54.

ALSO READ: 6 Analyst Stock Picks Called to Double

There were several other key analyst upgrades and downgrades from Thursday as follows:

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