Investing
Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Altria, BofA, FireEye, Ford, J.P. Morgan, Linn Energy and More
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Stocks were indicated to have a soft open on Monday. The U.S. equity market is at all-time highs and investors still remain optimistic about the U.S. recovery and are looking for good value and other opportunities to make money from stocks. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of research reports each morning of the week, on the hunt for new trading and investing ideas for our readers. Some analyst calls cover stocks to buy, but some cover stocks to sell or to avoid. These are this Monday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades covered by 24/7 Wall St.
Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $46 from $43 at Stifel.
American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) was started with a Buy rating at Citigroup.
Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was raised to Buy from Neutral and the price target was raised to $19 from $17 at Goldman Sachs. The bank was actually just listed this weekend as one of six key stocks with high-profile and controversial analyst downgrades.
FireEye Inc. (NASDAQ: FEYE) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight and the price target was cut to $16 from $17 (versus a $17.14 close) at Morgan Stanley.
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JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was reiterated as Buy with a $68 price objective (versus a$59.91 close) at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The call is following management meetings with the CEO of JPM Consumer & Community Banking and a belief that its deposit base will be key to its rate sensitivity.
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: KERX) was a company we featured late last week as being one that found out that not all FDA approvals are a good thing. Now we saw news on Monday morning that Keryx has been downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at FBR Capital Markets. Roth Capital Markets maintained its Buy rating and raised its price target to $32 from $30 in the call. Keryx closed down over 5% at $17.01 on Friday, and shares were indicated down around 4% more in early indications.
L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LLL) was raised to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.
Linn Energy LLC (NASDAQ: LINE) was reinstated as Outperform with a $35 price target (versus a $31.24 close) at Credit Suisse.
LinnCo LLC (NASDAQ: LNCO) was reinstated as Outperform with a $34 price target (versus a $30.84 close) at Credit Suisse.
United Natural Foods Inc. (NASDAQ: UNFI) was reiterated as Buy with an $83 price target at Canaccord Genuity after an acquisition. Janney Capital Markets just started coverage as Buy, but with a $75 price target, late last week.
Waters Corp. (NYSE: WAT) was started with an Underweight rating at Morgan Stanley.
Westlake Chemicals Corp. (NYSE: WLK) was raised to Buy from Underperform at Merrill Lynch.
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Goldman Sachs issued a report after Friday’s close that it is getting more bullish on equities for the rest of 2014. The weighting was moved to Overweight from Neutral.
There were nine analyst stocks trading under $10 with key upgrades in recent days. Also, we tracked six controversial and high-profile analyst downgrades in recent days.
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