Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: AES, Ambarella, Beyond Meat, Bloom Energy, Facebook, Home Depot, SunPower, Tesla, Valero and More

Investing

Published: September 18, 2020 9:17 am

Last Updated: September 19, 2022 12:40 pm

Stocks were looking for direction on this quadruple witching Friday. For many investors who missed out on the recovery from late in March through September, now is the time to be looking for new ideas for how to be positioned in the second half of 2020 and ahead of the election.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week with a goal of finding new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some of these daily analyst calls cover stocks to buy. Other calls cover stocks to sell or avoid.

Remember that no single analyst call should ever be used as a basis to buy or sell a stock. Consensus analyst target data is from Refinitiv.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations from Friday, September 18, 2020.

Abeona Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: ABEO) was started as Buy and a $5 price target (versus a $1.96 prior close) at B. Riley FBR. Shares were trading above $2 on Friday morning, and the market cap is only $166 million.

AES Corp. (NYSE: AES) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $23 from $19 at Morgan Stanley. Shares closed up 2% at $18.43 on Thursday, with a $19.44 consensus target price.

Ambarella Inc. (NASDAQ: AMBA) was started with a Buy rating and a $67 price target (versus a $52.19 prior close) at Berenberg. The stock was down 1.75% on Thursday and had a $62.92 consensus price target.

American Electric Power Co. Inc. (NYSE: AEP) was reiterated as Overweight and the price target was trimmed to $98 from $100 at Morgan Stanley.

Beyond Meat Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND) was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JPMorgan, with the firm citing that the stock was too rich with rival Impossible Foods taking some of its market share at grocery stores and restaurants.

Bloom Energy Corp. (NYSE: BE) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $23 from $21 (versus a $14.55 prior close) at Morgan Stanley.

Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ: PLAY) was down 26% at $14.12 on Thursday and was indicated up over 8% on Friday on a report that it has suggested it may face bankruptcy if lenders did not reach a deal with the company. Stifel raised it to Buy from Hold with a $20 price target, and Raymond James raised its rating to Outperform from Market Perform with a $20 target. Truist Securities also reiterated its Buy rating and $22 price target after calling the news an overreaction.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) was reiterated as Overweight and its price target was raised to $295 from $285 (versus a $254.82 prior close, after a 3.3% drop) at Morgan Stanley. Facebook had a $287.22 prior consensus target price, and its recent high was $304.67 a share.

Foot Locker Inc. (NYSE: FL) was raised to Buy from Hold at Argus, with the independent research firm seeing customers starting to return to its stores.

Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) was reiterated as Outperform with a $36 price target (versus a $25.77 prior close) at Wedbush Securities.