Stocks were looking for direction Wednesday morning. Investors keep proving that they will buy value stocks or stocks that are discounted when they can. 24/7 Wall St. looks over dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new trading and investing ideas for its readers. Some of these analyst reports cover stocks to buy, and others cover stocks to sell or avoid.

It turns out that many analysts are still making key changes in their oil and gas picks. We have also recently given a prediction of five big Dow stocks we believe will have dividend hikes before 2014 ends.

These are this Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.

American Electric Power Co. Inc. (NYSE: AEP) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $66 from a prior target of $59 (versus a $58.36 close) at Argus.

BP PLC (NYSE: BP) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays, but the price target was lowered to indicate roughly 30% upside in London pricing.

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: CY) rose on its acquisition of Spansion, and another upgrade has been seen: to Buy from Hold and with a $16 price target from Needham.

Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) was started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) was downgraded to Sell from an already cautious Neutral rating at Goldman Sachs. The firm also gave a $5.50 price target, versus a $7.39 closing price.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) was started as Buy at Citigroup.

Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) was started as Outperform at Oppenheimer. Credit Suisse maintained its Outperform rating, but lowered estimates and slashed the price target all the way down to $100 from $141 in the call.

ALSO READ: What Could Make IBM the Best-Performing Dow Stock of 2015

Other Key Analyst Calls Wednesday

Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) was started as Perform at Oppenheimer.

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners L.P. (NYSE: BWP) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.

CBOE Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup.

El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LOCO) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

Novartis A.G. (NYSE: NVS) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

OmniVision Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OVTI) was indicated lower after giving a disappointing outlook for the coming quarter. The stock was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Securities, with its target price cut to $29 from $31.

Statoil ASA (NYSE: STO) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays.

Spectra Energy Partners L.P. (NYSE: SEP) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.

Telefonica S.A. (NYSE: TEF) was raised to Neutral from Reduce at Nomura.

TJX Companies Inc. (NYSE: TJX) was raised to the prized Conviction Buy List from Neutral and the price target was raised to $77 from $71 (versus a $65.24 close) at Goldman Sachs.

TASER International Inc. (NASDAQ: TASR) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight with a $20 price target (versus a $23.34 close) at J.P. Morgan.

Vale S.A. (NYSE: VALE) was raised to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity.

Weatherford International PLC (NYSE: WFT) was started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.

ALSO READ: What Could Make Exxon and Chevron the Top Dow Stocks of 2015

In case you missed Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of Apache, Apple, Cypress Semiconductor, ITT, Microsoft and a dozen or so more.

The team at Merrill Lynch has also identified its top MLPs that should be largely insulated from lower oil prices ahead, although Deutsche Bank has lowered its price targets on top oil stocks despite maintaining a positive rating.

Jefferies sees only about 5% upside in stocks ahead in 2015, but we highlighted the firm’s top dividend stocks of 2015 that could outperform the market.

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