Top Analyst Upgrades and Stocks to Buy: Fusion-io, Marvell, National Oilwell Varco and More

Investors and traders are often looking for new research ideas that can generate higher income or more profits. 24/7 Wall St. reviews many fresh research calls each morning to find great ideas from value stocks to growth stocks to dividend stocks. We have broken out the positive analyst calls and these are some of this Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades, initiations and positive analyst research calls seen from Wall Street.

Cimarex Energy Co. (NYSE: XEC) was started as Buy with a $99 price target at Canaccord Genuity.

Cree Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) was reiterated as Buy with a $72 price target (versus $57.30 close) at Sterne Agee based on the belief of a new high performance A19 LED bulb.

E*TRADE Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie.

Fusion-io Inc. (NYSE: FIO) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray after yesterday’s key upgrade on buyout chatter, and it was maintained Neutral at Sterne Agee.

Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) was reiterated as Buy with a $45 price target and on the Focus List at Argus.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at J.P. Morgan.

MDC Holdings Inc. (NYSE: MDC) was raised to Outperform from Neutral but its price target was cut to $36 from $39 (versus $29.37 close) at Credit Suisse.

National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NYSE: NOV) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the target price was raised to $90 from $82 (versus $78.42 close) at Credit Suisse.

Ocwen Financial Corp. (NYSE: OCN) was started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.

Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE: PRU) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised by $13 to $88 at Argus.

Simon Property Group Inc. (NYSE: SPG) was started with a Buy rating at Janney.

Deutsche Bank now sees the S&P 500 Index rising to 1,750 in short order and it gave about 10 key stock picks to lead the way.

Credit Suisse has given high-yield MLP picks that will outperform despite rising interest rates.