Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: J.C. Penney, Micron, Twitter, NBG, SanDisk and More

Investing

Published: May 16, 2014 8:50 am

Last Updated: May 16, 2014 10:32 am

Earnings season is winding down, but investors still want to find profits and to avoid catching the top or picking bad stocks. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning for new ideas for its readers. These are this Friday’s top Wall Street analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.

Alkermes PLC (NASDAQ: ALKS) was started as Buy with a $53 price target (versus a $44.02 close) by Jefferies.

AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (NYSE: AU) was raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.

E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc. (NYSE: DANG) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

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J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) was maintained as Neutral but with raised estimates at Sterne Agee, but the firm does say not to chase the short squeeze after earnings.

Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $113 price target by Merrill Lynch.

L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LLL) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $145 from $122 at Credit Suisse.

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Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) was reiterated as Buy with a $32 price target after recent weakness by Sterne Agee.

National Bank of Greece S.A. (NYSE: NBG) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at J.P. Morgan.

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. (NYSE: NSM) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies.

Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) was raised to outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $78 from $65 at Credit Suisse.

Protective Life Corp. (NYSE: PL) was to Buy from Underperform with a $62 price target by Merrill Lynch.

ALSO READ: Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway’s Big Portfolio Changes

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) was reiterated as Buy with a $92 price target after recent weakness by Sterne Agee.

TheStreet Inc. (NASDAQ: TST) is not covered very often, so when it is covered it stands out. Jim Cramer’s house was started with a Buy rating and $4.15 price target by a firm named B. Riley.

Torchmark Corp. (NYSE: TMK) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Merrill Lynch.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) was raised to Hold from Sell with a $38 price target by Wunderlich. This is the fourth such upgrade we have seen like this (Sell to Neutral equivalent) in the past two weeks.

ViaSat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $70 to $74 range at Wells Fargo.

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