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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Apple, BofA, BP, First Solar, Fitbit, Seagate, SunEdison, Western Digital and Many More
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Stocks gave up their gains on Wednesday to close in the red, and shares are indicated lower Thursday morning. We still see investors wanting to buy value when the dips come, a trend that is four years in the making. The difference this time is that the Dow and S&P 500 finally sold off more than 10% before buyers surfaced.
24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day to find new trading and investing ideas for its readers. Some analyst calls cover stocks to buy, while other calls cover stocks to sell or avoid. These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was reiterated as Buy with a $155 price target at Canaccord Genuity, with praise over new products strengthening Apple’s ecosystem. Credit Suisse reiterated its Outperform rating and $145 price target, noting that Apple’s new releases point to continued innovation in hardware, software and services.
Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo. It has a consensus analyst target price of $15.90 and a 52-week trading range of $14.60 to $18.48.
BP PLC (NYSE: BP) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Bernstein. The stock closed down 1.6% at $30.90 in New York on Wednesday, within a 52-week range of $30.53 to $46.91.
First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) was started as Buy with a fair value target of $77 at Janney Capital Markets. Just a day earlier, Oppenheimer initiated it with an Outperform rating and a $61 price target.
Fitbit Inc. (NYSE: FIT) was started as Market Perform with a price target of $38.00 (versus a $35.95 prior close) at Cowen. It was just two days earlier that Fitbit was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $58.00 price target at Morgan Stanley.
Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) was started as Sell with a $38.00 price target (versus a $50.10 close) at UBS. Seagate has a consensus target price of $57.28 and a 52-week range of $44.46 to $69.40.
SunEdison Inc. (NYSE: SUNE) was started as Buy with a fair value target of $23.00 (versus a $11.96 close) at Janney Capital Markets. SunEdison has a 52-week range of $8.10 to $33.45 and a consensus price target of $27.64. A day earlier, Oppenheimer initiated SunEdison with an Outperform rating and an $18 price target.
ALSO READ: 3 Stocks That Sold Off Too Much After Great Earnings
Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) was started as Sell with a $71 price target (versus a $82.40 close) at UBS. Western Digital has a consensus price target of $101.79 and a 52-week range of $74.44 to $114.69.
Additional key analyst upgrades and downgrades were seen Thursday in the following:
CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $60.00 price target (versus a $43.51 close) at Deutsche Bank.
Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) was started as Buy with a $65.00 price target (versus a $52.55 close).
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) was downgraded to Hold from Buy with a $27.00 price target (versus a $26.20 close) at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Extreme Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: EXTR) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $4.50 price target (versus a $3.19 close) at Wunderlich Securities.
Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $105.00 price target (versus a $86.64 close) at Barclays.
Southwestern Energy Co. (NYSE: SWN) was raised to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) was started as Neutral at Janney Capital Markets.
Varonis Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNS) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight with a $16.00 price target (versus a $19.71 close) at Morgan Stanley.
Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo.
ALSO READ: 6 Alternative Energy Stocks to Outperform Into 2016
Review from Wednesday, with deal pricing for Thursday trading: Gilead faced some unenthusiastic ratings after pricing $10 billion in senior unsecured notes.
Also seen this week: Merrill Lynch lowered its 2015 price target on the S&P 500 to 2,100 from 2,200 on Tuesday, and Morgan Stanley lowered its price target to 2,200 from 2,275.
In case you missed out on Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they included Celgene, Ciena, Goldman Sachs, MannKind, Newfield Exploration, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Yingli Green Energy and over a dozen more companies.
In case you missed Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of Amgen, Dow Chemical, Fitbit, Office Depot, SanDisk, Wells Fargo, Yum! Brands and over a dozen more companies.
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