24/7 Wall St.

Stocks were indicated to open higher marginally higher ahead of the FOMC decision and after Tuesday’s trade talk-induced rally. The market volatility has shaken out many investors, but those who have their eyes on the long ball still need to be considering how they want their portfolios and assets positioned for the second half of 2019 and beyond.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week. Our goal is to find new ideas for traders and long-term investors alike. Some of the daily analyst calls cover stocks to buy. Other analyst calls cover stocks to sell or stocks to avoid.

We have provided these calls in a quick-hit summary for easy reading and additional comments and trading data have been added on some of the calls. The consensus analyst price targets mentioned and other valuation metrics are from the Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) sell-side research service.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations from Wednesday, June 19, 2019.

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) was up 0.4% ahead of earnings, but the post-earnings reaction had shares up just over 4% at $288.50 on Wednesday. Wedbush Securities maintained its Neutral rating but raised its target up to $290 from $270 in the call. RBC maintained its Outperform rating and raised its target to $295 from $290. Barclays reiterated its Overweight rating but raised its target on Adobe to $330 from $303.

Energizer Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ENR) was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral and its target price was cut down to $36 from $45 (versus $41.82 close) at JPMorgan. Energizer was indicated down 5.5% at $39.50 and it had a consensus analyst target price of $55.80.

KemPharm, Inc. (NASDAQ: KMPH) was started with a Buy rating and was assigned a $3.00 target price (versus $1.80 close) at H.C. Wainwright. KemPharm has a mere $51 million market cap and a 52-week range of $1.15 to $6.85.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) was started with a Market Perform rating at Raymond James. Marvell closed up 3.5% at $24.55 ahead of the call and it had a consensus analyst target price of $27.14.

MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDB) was reiterated as Buy at Stifel, and the firm raised its target price to $180 from $155 in its call. KeyBanc Capital Markets reiterated its Outperform rating and raised its target to $188 from $165. MongoDB closed up 0.8% at $166.36 and it had a consensus analyst target price of $154.33.

Netgear, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR) was started as Buy with $40 target price (versus $25.48 close) at Guggenheim. Its consensus analyst target price is $47.67 and its 52-week range is $24.63 to $78.30.

National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCMI) was started with an Outperform rating and was assigned a $8 target p[rice (versus $6.44 prior close) at Wedbush Securities. The firm feels that NCM is nimble enough to grow advertising revenue even if theater attendance levels fall short of expectations. That would offer a buffer to a variable box office environment and the firm is less concerned now about reserved seating driving later arrivals than in the past. NCM is expected to recoup ad dollars elsewhere, such as in-lobby during the early pre-show and by expanding digital packages for national ad spots.

Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ: RGLD) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity. After closing up 1.3% at $96.57, it had a consensus analyst target price of $96.25.

Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs. Sabre closed up 1.6% at $22.79 and its prior consensus analyst target price was $24.57.

Six Flags Entertainment (NYSE: SIX) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $62 from $51 (versus $51.63 prior close) at Wedbush Securities, with the firm calling out a number of potential catalysts lining up nicely for Six Flags’ investors.

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) was maintained at Sector Perform but the target price was lowered down to $65 from $80 at RBC Capital Markets. State Street closed up 2.5% at $46.70 and had a consensus analyst target price of $54.06.

STMicroelectronics N.V. (NYSE: STM) was started as Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Summit Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: SMLP) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.

SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWR) was up over 22% at $10.15 on Tuesday after Goldman Sachs raised its rating to Buy and was gave a positive view on domestic residential solar players. Now SunPower shares were last seen down about 3% at $9.85 on Wednesday as Raymond James downgraded its rating to Market Perform from Outperform. SunPower hit a 52-week high of $11.01 the prior day and the prior consensus analyst target price was $6.76.

TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $60 target price (versus $46.31 close) at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. TripAdvisor has a consensus analyst target price of $52.86 and a 52-week range of $42.01 to $69.00.

Goldman Sachs thinks technology stocks by and large are in trouble, but it still has several it sees as having big upside.

Goldman Sachs also gave a thumbs up for residential solar players in the U.S.

Ahead of the FOMC decision to cut rates or not — Credit Suisse has published extensively on the direct relationships between interest rates and stock prices. It sees higher rates generating higher valuations and sees lower rates generating lower valuations, and it feels there is no reason to believe that this relationship will be different going forward. The view is that central bank actions actually do little to address the structural causes of falling rates, inflation expectations and growth. Throughout the recovery, lower yields have also encouraged frugality via higher saving rates and have done little to spur capital spending.

Societe Generale was the latest to join in with the calls for a recession ahead. The firm’s second-half of 2019 views are based on the expectation of a slowdown in growth and ultimately a recession in 2020. It sees continued softness in core inflation and persistently low global yields. Their synopsis aid:

We believe these factors will lead to an upcoming Fed easing cycle, which over the medium term should result in lower yields and a modestly steeper curve, with the market anticipating both rate cuts and possible renewed QE afterwards. Swap spreads should generally continue to narrow, with front-end spreads being the exception due to their sensitivity to credit widening in an economic downturn. While implied vols will experience bouts of spikes on increased uncertainties, a sustained breakout from the low-vol regime is unlikely given the lack of rebuild in market term premiums, as reflected by the flat rate curvature.

Tuesday’s top analyst calls were in shares of Array Bio, Bank of America, Oracle, Pinterest, RingCentral, Snap, SunPower, Twilio, Xilinx and many more.