Top Analyst Upgrades and Stocks to Buy: Groupon, Rackspace, Sina and More

Investors are on the hunt for fresh research ideas that will lead to higher income or more profits. 24/7 Wall St. reviews many fresh research calls to find great ideas from value stocks to growth stocks to dividend stocks. We have broken out the positive analyst calls as far as stocks to buy and positive research calls, and these are some of Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, initiations and positive analyst research calls seen from Wall Street today. You will notice a focus on infrastructure stocks today.

American Water Works Co. Inc. (NYSE: AWK) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo after the water giant raised its dividend this week.

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) was raised to Buy from Hold at Soc-Gen.

Chicago Bridge & Iron N.V. (NYSE: CBI) was started as Buy with an $87 price target at Deutsche Bank.

Fluor Corp. (NYSE: FLR) was started as Buy with $84 price target at Deutsche Bank.

Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) was reiterated Buy with a $9 price target at Stern Agee and the firm was positive with comments about margin expansion potential, a better quarter and impressive mobile results. Shares are up 11% at $6.20 after earnings.

KBR Inc. (NYSE: KBR) was started as Buy with $44 price target at Deutsche Bank.

McDermott International Inc. (NYSE: MDR) was started as Buy with $12 price target at Deutsche Bank.

Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OPTT) is often too small and thin to cover, but a boutique firm called Ascendiant Capital has initiated coverage with a Strong Buy rating and a $5 price target. That would be an implied of more than 200% because this one closed at $1.48 on Wednesday against a 52-week range of $1.45 to $3.97.

Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens. The real story here for Rackspace is that there were more than 4 downgrades after an earnings miss has shares down massively.

Sina Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA) was raised to Overweight from Underweight at HSBC.

ViaSat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) was raised to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.

This week we released our top picks where analysts have predicted 40% to 100% upside in 13 different stocks.

Read also: Today’s Top Analyst Downgrades and Cautious Research Calls