Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Bank of America, First Solar, KKR, On Deck, Red Hat, Shake Shack and Many More

July 7, 2016 by Jon C. Ogg

Stocks were indicated marginally lower on Thursday. Last week’s post-Brexit recovery may have become muted this week, but it still shows how willing investors are to buy their favorite stocks after every major sell-off.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new investing and trading ideas for its readers. Some of these analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while other reports feature stocks to sell or avoid.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Thursday morning:

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was just featured as one of the five worst performing Warren Buffett picks for 2016 even if he holds the preferred shares, and now it was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James. Shares closed at $12.86 on Wednesday and were indicated down 0.2% at $12.83 on Thursday. The 52-week trading range is $10.99 to $18.48 and the consensus analyst target price is $17.22.

First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and the price target was slashed to $44 from $80 (versus a $49.13 prior close) at Deutsche Bank. The stock was indicated down over 3% at $47.35 or so. Its consensus price target is $72.90 and its 52-week range is $40.25 to $74.29.

KKR & Co. L.P. (NYSE: KKR) was started with an Outperform rating and was assigned a $16 price target (versus a $12.01 close) at Credit Suisse. The firm thinks that KKR is the cheapest alternative asset manager under both price to normalized free cash flow and on a sum of the parts basis. It has a consensus price target of $17.64 and a 52-week range of $8.00 to $24.79.

On Deck Capital Inc. (NYSE: ONDK) was started with a Buy rating and was given a fair value estimate of $7 (versus a $4.89 close) at Janney. This is a rather high upside call, but is still under the $8.85 consensus price target, and the 52-week range is $4.20 to $14.90. Janney’s team says that its database covers over 10 million small businesses and that it has the raw data needed to take the stodgy and often slow world of small business lending into the 21st century.

Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight with an $80 price target (versus a $72.18 close) at Morgan Stanley. The consensus price target is $87.97. The 52-week range is $59.59 to $84.44.

Shake Shack Inc. (NYSE: SHAK) was started with an Underperform rating and given a $30 price target (versus a $36.54 close) at Wedbush Securities. Even if Shake Shack was to fall to $30, it would still at that price be valued at almost 55 times expected 2017 earnings and 68 times expected 2016 earnings. It is currently valued at 66 times 2017 expected earnings and at 83 times expected 2016 earnings.

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Other top analyst upgrades and downgrades were seen as follows:

Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ACHN) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $13 price target (versus an $8.17 close, after a 3.8% gain) at JMP Securities.

Agree Realty Corp. (NYSE: ADC) was started with a Buy rating and given a $54 price target (versus a $48.87 close) at Stifel.

Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. (NYSE: BR) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays.

Cerus Corp. (NASDAQ: CERS) was started with a Buy rating and given a $9 price target (versus a $6.40 close) at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Investors Real Estate Trust (NYSE: IRET) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform with a $7 price target (versus a $6.31 close) at R.W. Baird.

LivePerson Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) was raised to Buy from Hold at Benchmark.

M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura Securities.

ONEOK Partners L.P. (NYSE: OKS) was raised to Buy from Neutral and the price target was raised to $46 from $38 (versus a $40.10 close) at UBS.

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ: RARE) was started with an Overweight rating and was given a $70 price target (versus a $51.76 close) at Piper Jaffray.

Western Union Co. (NYSE: WU) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight with a $20 price target (versus a $19.18 close) at Barclays.

Wingstop Inc. (NASDAQ: WING) was started with an Outperform rating and assigned a $35 price target (versus a $28.25 close) at Wedbush Securities.

Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades included American Airlines, American Water Works, Netflix, SunPower, United Continental and about a dozen more. Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades were in shares of Cerner, Energy Transfer Equity, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Netflix, KeyCorp, Hershey and a dozen other companies.

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