Investing

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Biogen, Equifax, Foot Locker, GE, NVIDIA, Rio Tinto, Roku and More

Jon C. Ogg

Published: October 23, 2017 9:15 am

Last Updated: March 20, 2020 11:23 am

Stocks have hit new highs and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went well above 23,000 by 300 points last week. Stocks were also indicated to open higher on Monday. The trend that has prevailed for more than five years now is that investors keep finding new reasons to buy stocks after every major sell-off. Those same investors are also hunting for new investing and trading ideas to generate gains and income ahead.

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

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

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and other research calls from Monday, October 23, 2017.

Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup. Piper Jaffray assumed coverage of Biogen as Overweight. The stock was down 1.26% at $338.10 on Friday and was indicated down 1.1% at $334.30 on Monday. It has a 52-week trading range of $244.28 to $348.84.

Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets. Equifax was down 0.5% at $109.97 on Friday and was indicated down 0.5% at $109.40 on Monday. It has a 52-week range of $89.59 to $147.02 and a consensus target price of 124.62.

Foot Locker Inc. (NYSE: FL) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a $29 price target (versus a $31.28 prior close) at Buckingham Research. The shares were up almost 1% at $31.28 on Friday but were indicated down 1.5% at $30.82 on Monday. Foot Locker has a 52-week range of $30.58 to $79.43 and a consensus target price target of $41.78.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley. UBS also downgraded GE to Neutral from Buy after Friday’s earnings. In a rather against-the-grain call, Merrill Lynch raised its rating to Buy from Neutral with a $27 price objective, but the firm lowered earnings and dividend expectations. 24/7 Wall St. identified 10 harsh realities GE shareholders will have to deal with from 2018 through 2020. Shares of GE hit a 52-week low of $22.10 on Friday after poor earnings, but closed up 1% at $23.83 after the market absorbed the new CEO comments. The shares were indicated down 1.5% at $23.47 on Monday.

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $230 from $180 (versus a $196.90 close) at Jefferies. The firm believes that NVIDIA’s Volta GPU with its tensor cores keeps it well ahead of competition in neural network training and will translate to upside surprises over the next 18 to 24 months.

Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE: RIO) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets. The American depositary shares were up 0.5% at $48.37 on Friday and were indicated down 1% at $47.87 on Monday.

Roku Inc. (NASDAQ: ROKU) has seen its quiet period come to an end and many of the firms have cautious ratings after a strong post-IPO trading. Roku was started as Perform at Oppenheimer. Citigroup started it as Neutral with a $24 price target. RBC Capital Markets started it as Sector Perform with a $26 price target. Needham started it as Buy with a $28 price target. Shares closed down 0.7% at $21.87 on Friday and were indicated up three cents at $21.90 on Monday. Its post-IPO range is $15.75 to $29.80.

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Other key analyst calls were seen in the following:

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AJRD) was downgraded to Hold from Buy but the price target was raised to $35 from $30 (versus a $34.40 close) at Jefferies. The firm noted that its shares are up 59% since March 31, 2017, (versus a 9% return for the market). Jefferies believes that Aerojet Rocketdyne has a number of long-term growth vehicles, but near-term performance will be offset by lower volumes for space launch programs.

Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: AIMT) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $70 from $42 (versus a $25.66 close) at Wedbush Securities. This was due to reduced competition for AR101 in peanut allergies.

Cemex SAB de C.V. (NYSE: CX) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup.

Clovis Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ: CLVS) was started as Overweight with a $105 price target (versus a $77.50 close) at Barclays.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (NYSE: DPS) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $98 price target (versus an $89.03 close) at Wells Fargo.

DBV Technologies S.A. (NASDAQ: DBVT) was maintained as Buy but the price target was cut to $37 from $51 (versus a $48.07 close) at Jefferies. The firm noted that Phase 3 data for Viaskin Peanut for peanut allergy is statistically significant, but the effect size is small, missing the lower bound of proposed efficacy range by two points.

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Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE: GNRC) was reiterated as Buy and the price objective was raised to $56 from $50 (versus a $50.59 close) at Merrill Lynch, noting that dealer surveys in Florida alone after Hurricane Irma will keep enough interest in home standby power high through the rest of 2017 and into 2018 for many.

Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) was raised to Neutral from Sell with a $225 fair value estimate (versus a $209.88 close) at Janney. The firm believes that the combination of continuing strength in Microarrays, Services and orders from GRAIL will drive revenue that meets or exceeds expectations.

Nightstar Therapeutics PLC (NASDAQ: NITE) was started as Buy with a $25 price target (versus a $19.00 close) at Jefferies. The firm called Nightstar a pure play gene therapy company that is differentiated through its sole focus on retinal diseases. Wedbush started it as Outperform with a $29 price target, with the firm noting that its lead asset (NSR-REP1) is set to enter Phase 3 with curative potential for choroideremia as a rare inherited retinal disease that has no other approved therapies in the marketplace.

Range Resources Corp. (NYSE: RRC) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.

ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW) was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $140 price target (versus a $124.82 close) at Piper Jaffray.

Science Applications International Corp. (NYSE: SAIC) was Raised to Buy From Neutral with an $82 price target (versus a $70.88 close) at Citigroup.

Sierra Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ: SRRA) was raised to Buy from Hold and the price target was raised to $4.00 from $1.50 (versus a $1.64 prior close) at Jefferies. The shares were up 2.5% on Friday and were indicated up another 8% at $1.75 on Monday morning.

SM Energy Co. (NYSE: SM) was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $30 price target (versus an $18.41 close) at JPMorgan.

With the average analyst Buy or Outperform rating coming about 8% to 10% upside to the price targets at this stage in the bull market, here were 10 very speculative analyst calls for 30% to 200% upside projections from the week of October 20. Just remember those 10 calls were highly speculative and full of much more risk than traditional Dow or S&P 500 companies.

Friday’s top analyst calls included Baidu, Barclays, Celgene, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Lululemon, PayPal, Stratasys and many more.