Investing

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Cliffs, CME, Darden, Endo, J.C. Penney and More

Stocks were firm on Monday morning after a weak Thursday and Friday, and the question is how much Columbus Day will matter for the markets. So far, we have seen that investors have continued to buy oversold stocks or individual stock stories when they stabilize. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new investment and trading ideas for our readers. Some of these research reports cover stocks to buy, and some of them cover stocks to sell or to avoid. These are this Monday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades featured by 24/7 Wall St.

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight and the price target was cut to $5 from $13 (versus a $7.32 close) at J.P. Morgan.

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo, while the valuation was cut to a range of $75.00 to $85.00 from the prior range of $85.00 to $95.00 (versus an $81.61 close).

Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight and the price target was cut to $50 from $55 (versus $a 48.37 close) at Piper Jaffray.

Dover Corp. (NYSE: DOV) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform and the price target was cut to $85 from $101 (versus a $75.76 close) at Baird.

Endo International PLC (NASDAQ: ENDP) was raised to Hold from Sell at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Infosys Ltd. (NYSE: INFY) was raised to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.

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J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS. We saw that Maxim downgraded this one to sell on Friday as well.

Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) was maintained as Buy but was raised to Conviction Buy and the price target was raised to $85 from $78 at Goldman Sachs. Lam Research was down 9% to $65.91 on Friday’s close.

ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ONNN) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest.

Parker-Hannifin Corp. (NYSE: PH) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo and to Neutral from Outperform with a $115 price target at Baird.

Planar Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: PLNR) was raised to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley.

Randgold Resources Ltd. (NASDAQ: GOLD) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.

Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at William Blair.

Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (NASDAQ: SFM) was raised to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

STMicroelectronics N.V. (NYSE: STM) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at J.P. Morgan.

T-Mobile US Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $34 from $33 (versus a $27.61 close) at Macquarie.

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USG Corp. (NYSE: USG) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) was raised upgraded to Overweight from Neutral by Piper Jaffray. Wells Fargo reiterated its Outperform rating with a $125 to $129 price range. Vertex closed at $104.73 on Friday.

We have 13 analyst stock picks under $10 over the past week with massive upside calls, including AMD, Glu Mobile, Nxt-ID, Novavax, Regions Financial, Sirius XM and many others.

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