Stocks have been in rally mode for going on three weeks, and investors should be considering which stocks to buy and which stocks to sell or avoid. Each morning, 24/7 Wall St. reviews literally dozens of Wall Street analyst research reports to look for nuggets and fresh ideas for investors and traders. Some are stocks to buy and some are stocks to sell. These are this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall Street research firms.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) was started as a Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald, just a day after Credit Suisse gave it a new Underperform rating.

Clorox Co. (NYSE: CLX) was downgraded to Underperform from an already cautious Neutral rating and the price target was cut to $78 from $87 at Credit Suisse.

EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) was started as Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen & Company.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) was started as Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) was started as Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Level 3 Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: LVLT) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight by Morgan Stanley.

MetLife Inc. (NYSE: MET) is still rated with Buy but it was moved up to the prized Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.

NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) has two conflicting calls: it was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform by William Blair but was started as Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Pier 1 Imports Inc. (NYSE: PIR) was recently at $20.33 and raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $25 from $23 at Credit Suisse. Argus maintained its Buy rating as well but lowered its price target by $1 to $26, based on lower earnings assumptions.

Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE: PRU) was maintained at Buy but it was removed from the prized Conviction Buy list at Goldman Sachs.

Societe Generale initiated both Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) with Hold ratings.

Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) was raised to Buy from Hold and has a 448 price target at Canaccord Genuity.

UBS added Boeing and others to its Quality Growth at a Reasonable Price (Q-GARP) list, which includes Apple, DuPont, Nike and others.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.