Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (NLY, APA, STD, GMR, GILD, GS, HOG, WFR, STX, SQNM, SFL, STT, YHOO)

These are some of this Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls:

Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE: NLY) Raised to Outperform at FBR.
Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA) Raised to Sector Perform at Scotia.
Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: STD) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
General Maritime (NYSE: GMR) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) Raised to Outperform at KBW.
Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE: HOG) Raised to Equal-Weight at Barclays.
MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR) Raised to Buy at Kaufman Bros.
Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) Cut to Hold at Brean Murray; Reiterated Buy at Needham.
Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) Raised to Buy at Ladenberg Thalmann; Started as Hold at Jefferies.
Ship Finance International Limited (NYSE: SFL) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.

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JON C. OGG