The futures were all trading lower on Wednesday, after investors watched a solid start to the trading day Tuesday turn into a big afternoon reversal wherein all the major indexes and the transportation index ended lower. Pundits cited everything from the potential for AT&T to cut its sacrosanct dividend to Bitcoin pressure as the reason for the big rollover. Despite some very strong results from retailers, the sellers took the upper hand in the final hours of trading and never looked back.
Despite the concerns across Wall Street for tapering of the quantitative easing program and clear building inflationary pressures, the Federal Reserve is vowing to keep interest rates contained, which could be one reason for the continued moves higher in the equity markets, even after sell-offs. Note that money markets continue to see massive inflows, which is another big plus.
With major Wall Street firms still warning of the potential for impending 5% to 10% correction across the board, it makes sense for investors to continue building some cash reserves into the market strength while repositioning portfolios for the balance of the second quarter and the rest of 2021.
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 seen on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.
Axon Enterprise Inc. (NASDAQ: AXON): Raymond James raised the stock to Strong Buy from Outperform and has a $150 price target. The consensus target is higher at $179.57, and the stock was last seen on Tuesday at $123.43.
Baozun Inc. (NASDAQ: BZUN): Credit Suisse raised its rating to Outperform from Neutral and has a $41 price target. The consensus price objective is $48.20, and the stock closed Tuesday at $34.47.
Cognex Corp. (NASDAQ: CGNX): Raymond James upgraded the shares to Strong Buy from Outperform and also raised the price target to $120. That is much higher than the $89.36 consensus. The final Tuesday trade came in at $73.45.
24/7 Wall St.Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.
Editors' Picks
