Stocks were indicated to open higher on Thursday. The major stock indexes remain close to all-time highs and the trend that has prevailed for more than five years is that investors have managed to keep finding new reasons to buy stocks after every sell-off. Many investors are also hunting for new investing ideas and trading to generate gains and income.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week. The goal is to find new investing and trading ideas for our readers. Some of these top analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while other analyst calls cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

Additional color and commentary has been added on most of the daily analyst calls. Consensus analyst price target data are from the Thomson Reuters sell-side research service.

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and other research calls from Thursday, August 31, 2017.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) was raised to Sector Perform from Underperform with a $14 price target (versus a $12.48 prior close) at RBC Capital Markets. Abercrombie has a 52-week trading range of $8.81 to $17.82 and had a consensus analyst target price of $11.50.

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ARCH) was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $90 price target (versus a $76.55 close) at JPMorgan. Shares were indicated up 1.5% at $77.71 after this call. Arch Coal has a consensus target price of $97.57 and its post-restructuring high is $86.47.

Baker Hughes, GE Company (NYSE: BHGE) was started with an Overweight rating and assigned a $41 price target (versus a $33.51 close) at Barclays. Baker Hughes has a consensus target price of about $50.

BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ: BMRN) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $98 price target (versus an $87.65 close) at Citigroup. BioMarin has a consensus target price of $111.75 and a 52-week range of $78.42 to $101.27.

Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $100 price target at Argus. It also was started with an Outperform rating at William Blair. The 52-week range is $63.76 to $82.07, and the consensus target price was recently seen at $80.11.

Hasbro Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) was started with an Overweight rating and was given a $112 price target (versus a $95.28 close) at KeyBanc Capital Markets. Hasbro has a consensus target price of $110.64 and a 52-week range of $76.14 to $116.20.

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) was started with a Neutral rating and assigned a $12 price target (versus a $15.02 close) at Wedbush Securities. Snap has a consensus target price of $14.88 and a post-IPO range of $11.28 to $29.44.

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Other key analyst calls were seen in the following: