Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: ADM, Cardlytics, Dermira, E*Trade, Herbalife, Mylan, UPS, VMware, Western Digital and More

March 6, 2018 by Jon C. Ogg

Stocks decided to rally sharply on Monday on word that the steel and aluminum tariffs might have some wiggle room in negotiations and after some dissent from Congress. The Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 were indicated to open about 0.5% higher on Tuesday. The bull market is now turning nine years old this week, and the one trend that has prevailed is for investors to buy the pullbacks. Investors still have to decide how they want to be positioned for the rest of 2018 and beyond.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week to find 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 Tuesday, March 6, 2018.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $49 price target (versus a $42.72 prior close) at Citigroup.

Bunge Ltd. (NYSE: BG) was raised to Buy from Neutral with an $89 price target (versus a $77.99 close) at Citigroup.

Cardlytics Inc. (NASDAQ: CDLX) was started as Buy with a $25 price objective at Merrill Lynch. It was started as Outperform with a $22 price target at Wells Fargo and started as Overweight with a $23 price target at JPMorgan.

Dermira Inc. (NASDAQ: DERM) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim. The stock closed down almost 66% at $8.59 on Monday, and the market cap fell from about $1 billion to $359 million.

Durect Corp. (NASDAQ: DRRX) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $3.50 price target (versus a $1.50 close) at H.C. Wainwright.

E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) was raised to Outperform with a $61 price target (versus a $52.62 close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

First Republic Bank (NYSE: FRC) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $110 price target (versus a $94.16 close) at Barclays.

Gladstone Investment Corp. (NASDAQ: GAIN) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with an $11 price target (versus a $9.56 close) at Wedbush Securities.

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE: HLF) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $114 price target (versus a $94.27 close) at Longbow Research. Herbalife closed down 0.5% on Monday but was indicated up 3.3% at $97.40 on Tuesday.

MuleSoft Inc. (NYSE: MULE) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $38 from $32 (versus a $33.05 close) at Oppenheimer.

Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ: MYL) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $50 price target (versus a $41.54 close) at Morgan Stanley.

PPL Corp. (NYSE: PPL) was raised to Outperform from Sector Perform with a $33 price target (versus a $28.32 close) at RBC Capital Markets.

Quintana Energy Services Inc. (NYSE: QES) was started as Overweight with a $14 target price at Piper Jaffray. Evercore ISI started it as Outperform with a $13 target price, and Stephens started it as Overweight with a $14 target. Merrill Lynch started Quintana with a Buy rating and a $12 price objective.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: AMTD) was raised to Outperform with a $66.50 price target (versus a $58.15 close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $121 price target (versus a $105.81 close) at Stifel.

Vericel Corp. (NASDAQ: VCEL) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann.

VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) was maintained as Hold but the price target was lifted to $134 from $123 at Maxim Group.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) was started as Neutral with a $90 target price (versus an $89.95 close) at UBS.

Monday’s top analyst calls included AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Foot Locker, Groupon, H&R Block, McDonald’s, Teradata, Under Armour, Valeant Pharmaceuticals and over a dozen more.

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