Stocks were lower ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Thursday, but that is after a week of strong performance. Whether the Federal Reserve hikes or not, the one trend that has remained in place for almost four years now is that investors have proven that they will buy value. Despite shares now having fallen more than 10% from the highs, every single dip has been followed with investors buying.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new trading and investing ideas for its readers. Some analyst calls cover stocks to buy, while others cover stocks to sell or avoid. These are this Thursday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.

Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) was started as Buy with a $40.00 price target (versus a $32.00 prior close) at MKM Partners. The stock has a 52-week trading range of $30.75 to $44.36 and a consensus analyst price target of $38.15. Most analysts still prefer to be cautious on Gap.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPW) was reiterated as Buy at Argus, but the firm lowered its price target to $36 from $43. Argus said that it intends to cover both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP after the split, but coverage will be named at that time rather than telegraphed ahead of time.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) was started as Buy and it was assigned a $69.00 price target (versus a $54.65 close) at MKM Partners. Lululemon has a consensus analyst price target of $64.13 and a 52-week range of $37.86 to $70.00.

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) was raised to Buy from Hold and the price target was raised $30 from $23 (versus a $23.10 close) at Jefferies. NVIDIA has a consensus price target of $23.58 and a 52-week range of $16.77 to $23.95. What stands out here is that the prior highest analyst target was $28.00.

Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA) was reiterated as Outperform at FBR Capital Markets, while the price target was raised to $115 from $105 in the call. Credit Suisse maintained its Neutral rating. Under Armour closed at $103.36 and has a consensus price target of $102.48 and a 52-week range of $60.00 to $103.56.

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Other key analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations this Thursday were in the following:

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a price objective of $48.00 (versus a $40.23 close) at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Cubic Corp. (NYSE: CUB) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with $52.00 price target (versus a $42.02 close) at Credit Suisse.

DCP Midstream Partners L.P. (NYSE: DPM) was raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.

Flowers Foods Inc. (NYSE: FLO) was started as Buy with a $27.00 price target (versus a $24.35 close) at Deutsche Bank.

Hasbro Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a $90.00 price target (versus an $80.25 close) at Goldman Sachs.

Raytheon Co. (NYSE: RTN) was already at Outperform at RBC Capital Markets, but the firm added the stock to its prized Top Pick list. Raytheon’s price target is $132.00, and it closed at $106.06.

Stanley Black & Decker Inc. (NYSE: SWK) was started as Buy at UBS (versus a $101.70 close).

Ubiquiti Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: UBNT) was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform and was given a $30.00 price target (versus a $35.29 close) at BMO Capital Markets.

Zumiez Inc. (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) was raised to Buy from Hold with an $18.00 price target (versus a $14.88 close) at Stifel Nicolaus.

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In case you missed Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in Ally Financial, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Monster Beverage, Oracle, Qualcomm, Zions Bancorp and over a dozen more companies.

With all the “Will they, won’t they?” and with all the “Should they, shouldn’t they?” on raising interest rates, 24/7 Wall St. would point out that fed funds futures do not yet price in a formal rate hike with a 100% certainty until November. What is so interesting about that is there is no FOMC meeting in November. That being said, the $99.83 last seen price on fed funds futures is technically higher than the average of the benchmark 0.00% to 0.25% fed funds target range at the Fed that has been in place for close to seven years.

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