The futures traded higher across the board Thursday. Like in the movie “Groundhog’s Day,” every trading day this week seems to be a replay of the preceding day, and that was once again the playbook for Wednesday as both the Dow Jones industrials and the S&P 500 printed new all-time highs, while the sellers were out again and the Nasdaq closed lower. Following the trend, the transport index had another stellar day, up over 1%, and debt sellers returned to the Treasury market as rates across the yield curve rose. The U.S. Department of Labor reported Wednesday that its Consumer Price Index rose 5.4% in July from a year earlier, in line with June’s figure and matching the largest jump since August 2008.

Despite worries and the potential for a “taper tantrum” like we saw in 2013, the Federal Reserve is vowing to keep interest rates contained. This comes as some of the Fed governors and media pundits are hinting that a tapering of the $120 billion per month purchase of government and mortgage debt known as quantitative easing could be in the works sooner rather than later.

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 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 Thursday, August 12, 2021.

Apollo Medical Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AMEH): Barclays started coverage on the stock with an Equal Weight rating and a $92 price target. The consensus price target is just $75. The stock closed Wednesday at $79.87, which was down almost 3% for the day.

Array Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRY): Guggenheim started coverage on the solar panel tracking company with a Buy rating and a $28 price target. The consensus target is $27.70. The last trade for Wednesday was posted at $15.32.

Canopy Growth Corp. (NYSE: CGC): Jefferies raised the cannabis stock to Hold from Underperform. Over the past 52 weeks, the shares have traded between $13.83 and $56.50. No consensus price objective was available. The stock closed Wednesday at $18.88, which was down over 3% on the day.