Top Analyst Downgrades, Stocks to Sell: Apple, Twitter, First Solar and More

Investing

Published: January 6, 2014 8:35 am

Last Updated: January 6, 2014 8:36 am

It is the first full trading week of 2014, and investors are trying to decide how to position their portfolios for the year. Wall Street brokerage firms are making their 2014 predictions almost daily now, and the stock market is effectively at all-time highs. 24/7 Wall St. reviews many fresh research calls each and every morning on the hunt for new ideas, and we have broken out the negative analyst calls today. These are this Monday’s top analyst downgrades and cautious research notes from Wall Street.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was downgraded to Sell from an already cautious Hold rating at a boutique firm called Standpoint Research. The reason for this downgrade seems to be based more on moral reasons rather than fundamental ones, although these can overlap if sentiment and media move against a company. Apple shares were down 2% on Friday, and shares were indicated marginally lower on Monday after this call.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) has taken yet another downgrade, this one coming from Morgan Stanley. The firm dropped the micro-blogging leader down to Underweight from an already cautious Equal Weight. Effectively, this is a Sell rating. The price target is down at $33 per share, versus a $69.00 closing bell price. Shares were indicated down another 3% on Monday. Maybe having a valuation at 60 times revenues is still just too much.

First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) was downgraded to Sell from Buy at Goldman Sachs, and shares were indicated down almost 5%, after the firm went to favoring the service side of the solar equation rather than the panel side.

Other key analyst downgrades were seen in the following stocks:

AFLAC Inc. (NYSE: AFL) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ALXN) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs.

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup.

Arris Enterprises Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRS) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays.

Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ: CELG) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at J.P. Morgan.

Wendy’s Co. (NASDAQ: WEN) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Janney Capital Markets.

WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral based on an unfavorable risk/reward profile with a $90 price target (versus a $97.10 close) at Sterne Agee.

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