Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Devon Energy, Illumina, Pandora, Panera, Potash, Regions Financial, Southwestern Energy and More

Investing

Published: April 19, 2016 9:15 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 10:37 am

Stocks were higher on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial recapturing the 18,000 level again. This marked the 2016 high and also is the first close above 18,000 going back to July 2015.

Investors have decided that the right path is a strategy of buying every dip, as was seen from 2011 to 2015. Now investors are looking for value and undiscovered or overlooked opportunity. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations each morning from the top brokerage firms. Some of the daily analyst calls cover stocks to buy, and others cover stocks to sell or avoid.

These are Tuesday’s top analyst initiations, upgrades and downgrades seen from major research calls.

Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $36 price target (versus a $32.01 prior close) at Morgan Stanley. It has a consensus analyst target price of $32.65 and a 52-week trading range of $18.07 to $70.48.

Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) has seen multiple analysts be cautious after its third earnings pre-announcement with news that some customers are outsourcing to service providers. Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy, and it was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald. Janney maintained a Neutral rating but lowered its fair value estimate to $145 from $160. Illumina closed up 2.6% at $178.13 on Monday but was indicated down 18% or so at $146.00 on Tuesday. Its consensus target price was $185.63 before this news, and the 52-week range is $130.00 to $242.37.