Stocks were very volatile last week, and Monday’s futures levels indicated a negative opening bell for the Dow Jones industrials, S&P 500 and Nasdaq after trade war fears were complicated and pushed by fears of a currency war as well, with China allowing its yuan to stay weaker. Investors should be considering exactly how they want to position their portfolios and assets 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 calls cover stocks to sell or 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 and other valuation metrics are from the Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) sell-side research service.
These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations on Monday, August 12, 2019.
Bluebird Bio Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair.
Buckeye Partners L.P. (NYSE: BPL) was reiterated as Sell at Argus, with the firm noting that the petroleum distributor was on track for a fourth-quarter of 2019 acquisition by IFM.
Fiserv Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV) was reiterated as Buy and the target price was raised to $120 (versus a $105.30 prior close) at Argus.
Fulcrum Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: FULC) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $19 price objective at Merrill Lynch. This is after closing down 7% at $11.62 on Friday.
Genmab A/S (NASDAQ: GMAB) was up 0.7% at $18.94 on Friday and was indicated up almost 2% more at $19.30 on Monday. RBC Capital Markets started it as Outperform, Guggenheim started it as Buy and Morgan Stanley started it as Overweight.
GTT Communications Inc. (NYSE: GTT) closed up 10.2% at $6.71 on Friday, but that was after falling from almost $11.50 on Wednesday prior to earnings. Raymond James downgraded its rating to Market Perform from Outperform, as the provider of internet services was under its expectations.
Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the target price was raised to $345 from $300 at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Livent Corp. (NYSE: LTHM) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral and the price objective was cut to $7 from $10 (versus a $7.58 close) at Merrill Lynch. The manufacturer and seller of performance lithium compounds has been public less than a year, and it has a 52-week trading range of $5.49 to $19.90. Its consensus target price was $10.05 ahead of this downgrade.
Manitowoc Co. Inc. (NYSE: MTW) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform and the target price was lowered to $19 from $22 at Robert W. Baird. It closed up 4.5% at $17.01 on Friday but was indicated down almost 3% at $16.50 on Monday.
Mirum Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: MIRM) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $21 target price (versus a $14.77 close) at Citigroup.
National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NYSE: NOV) was raised to Positive from Neutral with a $25 target price (versus a $20.08 close) at Susquehanna.
Netease Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) was up 2% at $242.90 on Friday but was indicated down 1.9% at $238.30 on Monday, after Goldman Sachs downgraded it to Neutral from Buy. The 52-week range is $184.60 to $289.69.
New Relic Inc. (NYSE: NEWR) was raised to Buy from Hold with $93 target price (versus a $63.08 close) at Argus.
News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWSA) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse, noting a focus on value after earnings.
ONEOK Inc. (NYSE: OKE) was raised to Buy from Neutral and the target price was raised to $75 from $69 at UBS.
Owl Rock Capital Corp. (NYSE: ORCC) was started as Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann and at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Raymond James and RBC Capital Markets started it as Outperform, and Merrill Lynch started it as Neutral. Shares closed at $15.90 on Friday
Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) was reiterated as Hold at Argus following its enterprise sale to Broadcom.
Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) was reiterated as Outperform and the target price was raised to $56.00 from $54 at JMP Securities. The Uber versus Lyft earnings and analyst scorecard wasn’t quite what the post-earnings initial headlines and reactions might have indicated.
Wright Medical Group N.V. (NASDAQ: WMGI) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ZBH) was raised to Buy from Hold with a new $160 target price (versus a $138.31 close) at Argus.
Zacks has named Chegg Inc. (NYSE: CHGG) as its Bull of the Day, saying that this firm’s phenomenal run over the past three years has seen its e-commerce grow massively. The Bear of the Day is Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NASDAQ: GT). Zacks noted that its shares tanked once again following worse than expected second-quarter results.
Goldman Sachs is telling its clients to buy five top blue-chip services stocks if you are worried about a prolonged trade war with China. The firm also just lowered GDP forecasts for later in 2019 based on the ongoing drag of this trade war with China.
Jefferies also have four value stocks to buy with the market volatility coming back while the indexes still remain close at all-time highs from last month.
Friday’s top analyst calls included Activision Blizzard, ANGI Home Services, Azul, Baidu, CommScope, E*Trade, Kraft Heinz, Symantec, Uber Technologies and many more.
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