Monday's Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Affirm, BlackRock, Deere, Dick's, Dollar Tree, ICE, Mastercard, Merck, Pure Storage and More

Investing

Published: November 29, 2021 8:48 am

Last Updated: November 29, 2021 10:54 am

The futures bounced back and traded higher on Monday after what truly was a “Black Friday” for investors. After the biggest one-day drop for stocks since June of 2020, all the major indexes ended well over 2% lower. The main cause for the selling, on what is typically a very low-volume shortened trading day, was yet another new COVID-19 variant, called Omicron, which was discovered in South Africa. Despite the limited number of cases, and the fact that both Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer are already testing their vaccine against the new variant, the new discovery was all the risk-off crew needed to hit the sell button.

Bloomberg noted last week that there has been a fair amount of chatter on the release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which many across Wall Street feel is unlikely to have much impact on energy prices. With oil closing down a massive 13% on Friday it’s a good bet that more releases any time soon are unlikely, especially after it was reported that some of the oil was going to India and China.

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 Monday November 29, 2021.

Affirm Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AFRM): Piper Sandler started coverage on the buy-now-pay-later company with a Neutral rating and a $127 price target. The consensus target is $164.46. The shares closed Friday at $136.98.

Ameriprise Financial Inc. (NYSE: AMP): Goldman Sachs reiterated its Buy rating on the stock and lifted the $340 target price to $350. The consensus target is $337.11. The final trade on Friday came in at $291.74, which was down almost 4% on the day.

Beacon Roofing Supply Inc. (NASDAQ: BECN): Raymond James reiterated a Market Perform rating on the shares but, surprisingly, the firm’s target price was not available. The posted consensus target is $65.73. The final trade for Friday was at $53.77 a share.