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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Albermarle, Allergan, Boston Scientific, eBay, FedEx, Gogo, LendingTree, Nokia, UPS, Vertex and More

Jon C. Ogg

Published: February 23, 2018 9:05 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 3:07 am

The stock market has demonstrated that perhaps the return of volatility is real after Wednesday’s big gains suddenly turned into a big loss in the final 30 minutes of trading. Now stocks are indicated just marginally higher after digesting more of the verbiage from the Federal Open Market Committee minutes yesterday. With the bull market approaching nine years old, the trend that has worked without fail for roughly six years has been to buy the dips every time. Investors still have to decide how they want to be positioned for 2018 and beyond.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week to find new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some analyst reports and research reports cover stocks to buy. Others cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

Additional color and commentary has been added on most of the daily analyst reports. The consensus analyst price targets and other valuation metrics are from the Thomson Reuters sell-side research service.

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and other research calls from Friday, February 23, 2018.

Acacia Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: ACIA) was down almost 4% on Thursday, but the shares were down over 13% at $36.10 on Friday morning after the optical networking sector faced earnings pressure. Needham downgraded Acacia to Hold from Buy, and D.A. Davidson downgraded it to Neutral from Buy with a $38 price target. Acacia has a 52-week trading range of $34.20 to $61.15.

Albemarle Corp. (NYSE: ALB) was reiterated as Buy with a $148 price target (versus a $113.68 prior close) at Argus, with the independent research firm noting a strong outlook for the major lithium producer. The 52-week range is $91.02 to $144.99, and the consensus analyst target price is $144.11.

Allergan PLC (NYSE: AGN) was started as Buy and assigned a $200 price target (versus a $159.40 close) at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. The firm sees an attractive valuation in Allergan with manageable competition for its Botox. The 52-week range is $156.00 to $256.80, and the consensus target price was $217.95.

Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE: BSX) was started as Overweight and assigned a $31 price target (versus a $26.48 close) at Piper Jaffray. The 52-week range is $24.02 to $29.93. The consensus target price is $31.60.

CTI BioPharma Corp. (NASDAQ: CTIC) was started with an Outperform rating and assigned a $5 price target (versus a $3.71 close) at Oppenheimer. The firm believes that the primary driver of value is compound pacritinib for treatment of patients with myelofibrosis.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $50 at Argus, with the independent research firm noting that it has raised earnings expectations and that eBay deserves a higher multiple.

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FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Bernstein. It closed at $245.43 on Thursday and was indicated up 1.4% at $248.87 on Friday.

Gogo Inc. (NASDAQ: GOGO) was down 13% at $9.13 on Thursday and was indicated down another 2% at $8.95 on Friday. JPMorgan downgraded it to Neutral from Overweight with a $10 price target. Gogo has a 52-week range of $8.52 to $14.76.

LendingTree Inc. (NASDAQ: TREE) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $400 from $370 (versus a $341.05 close) at Oppenheimer. The firm sees the 8% drop on Thursday as an opportunity to buy on weakness.

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ: NBIX) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $110 from $100 at Oppenheimer.

New Relic Inc. (NYSE: NEWR) was started with an Outperform rating and assigned an $86 price target (versus a $70.63 close) at Wedbush Securities, with the firm noting that the company is sustaining 30% or so revenue growth and inflecting to profitability with a long runway ahead for growth and margin expansion.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) has been talked up by some firms, but independent research firm Argus has reiterated its Hold rating after flat sales and weakness in the core wireless market ahead of the 5G build-outs. Nokia closed at $5.71 on Thursday, and it has a 52-week range of $4.51 to $6.65.

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OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE: OGE) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $34 price objective at Merrill Lynch. The firm sees shares at an inflection point on improving capital spending deployment and as a tax reform winner. The stock closed at $31.47 on Thursday, in a 52-week range of $29.59 to $37.41.

Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) was reiterated as Buy at Argus, with the firm noting that the recent weakness offers a buying opportunity. Sanofi’s 12-month target of $55 now looks more appropriate for 2019 to 2020, but its new view is that $46 looks more realistic this year. The American depositary shares closed at $39.85 on Thursday.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) was reiterated as Buy with a $107 target at Argus, noting the shares are 13% under AT&T’s buyout price of $107.50. The firm sees it attractive on its own and growing earnings ahead.

United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank, which expressed doubts about UPS being able to contain its capital spending.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $194 at Argus, following what the firm sees as a strong quarter following cystic fibrosis drugs.

Credit Suisse has issued its earnings season scorecard. Expectations have risen by 7% year to date on tax changes and better economics. With 90% of the S&P 500 having reported earnings, the earnings reports are beating by 4.7% and 73% are companies surpassing bottom-line estimates. This compares to 4.7% and 68% over the past three years.

S&P has sent out a note showing that approximately 75% of S&P 500 companies have beat the consensus EPS estimates in the fourth quarter (better-than-average beat rate of 67%) and this is the best since 2011. The rebound in sales growth went up to 8.1% from the average growth rate of 5.0% as the best since the 2015 to 2016 earnings weakness.

Eight stocks on Thursday received multiple analyst upgrades or downgrades after earnings or key news.

Thursday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades included Alkermes, ArQule, Bluebird Bio, Cognizant, Ecolab, KLA-Tencor, Pandora Media, Verisk Analytics, Vonage and many more.