Stocks were flat in the early morning hours on Thursday, but futures turned higher on all three major U.S. equity indexes. The markets are back to challenging their highs as well, but not necessarily in international and emerging markets. As many investors have seen lower upside from buying on market pullbacks than in prior years, they have to consider how they want to have their investments positioned for the rest of 2018 and as 2019 approaches.

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 cover stocks to buy, but some cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

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

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Thursday, September 20, 2018.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) was trading up about 2% at $31.93 on Thursday morning, after a 2.2% drop to $31.21 on Wednesday. Stifel reiterated AMD as Buy and raised the price target to $38 from $21.

arGEN-X N.V. (NASDAQ: ARGX) was added to the Best Ideas List at Wedbush Securities, with the firm noting an increasing confidence in efgartigimod’s broad market opportunity in antibody-mediated autoimmune diseases.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. (NYSE: BIO) was started as Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Bruker Corp. (NASDAQ: BRKR) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight and the target price was raised to $32 from $31 (versus a $34.89 prior close) at Morgan Stanley.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with a $191 price target (versus a $152.76 close, after a 2.5% gain) at Robert W. Baird. Caterpillar has a $166.50 consensus target price, and the 52-week trading range is $123.62 to $173.24.

Church & Dwight Co. (NYSE: CHD) was started with an Overweight rating at Atlantic Equities.

Clorox Co. (NYSE: CLX) was started as Neutral at Atlantic Equities.

Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) was started as Neutral at Atlantic Equities.

Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE: DO) was raised to Outperform from Sector Perform with a $23 price target (versus a $17.87 close) at RBC Capital Markets. Shares closed at $17.87 and have a 52-week range of $13.00 to $21.92.

Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) was started with an Overweight rating at Atlantic Equities. The stock closed at $139.66 and has a 52-week range of $106.00 to $158.50.

Follow @Jonogg on Twitter to receive the daily analyst calls and other market research calls directly on your feed.