Stocks were indicated higher on Friday going into the unemployment and payrolls report. Investors want to keep buying value and discounted shares on the dips. That trend is now four years old, even if this was the first time that shares fell more than 10% in that time. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning of the week to find new trading and investing ideas for our readers. Some of these daily analyst calls cover stocks to buy, and other calls cover stocks to sell or to avoid. These are this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ALXN) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $211 price target (versus a $157.82 prior close) at Morgan Stanley.

American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform and the price target was cut to $63 from $68 (versus a $56.92 close) at FBR Capital Markets.

BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $350 price target (versus a $295.92 close) at UBS.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) was started as Outperform with a $115 price target (versus a $90.95 close) at Wedbush Securities.

Finish Line Inc. (NASDAQ: FINL) was raised to Neutral from Sell at Goldman Sachs. Finish Line closed most recently at $18.92.

ALSO READ: 4 Blue Chip High-Dividend Energy Stocks on Sale After Market Sell-Off

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) was downgraded to Neutral from at Goldman Sachs.

Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) was raised to Outperform from Perform with a $700 price target (versus a $611.29 close) at Oppenheimer.

Horsehead Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: ZINC) was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer.

LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LPLA) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $36 price target (versus a $39.39 close) at UBS.

Martin Marietta Materials Inc. (NYSE: MLM) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Longbow Research.

Northern Trust Corp. (NASDAQ: NTRS) was raised to Neutral from Sell with a $70 price target (versus a $68.21 close) at UBS.

Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. (NASDAQ: ODFL) was started as Buy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc. (OLLI) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with a $20 price target (versus a $16.08 close) at Credit Suisse.

ALSO READ: Groundbreaking Technology Innovation Could Be Huge for 5 Top Tech Stocks

Radius Health Inc. (NASDAQ: RDUS) was started as Overweight with a price target of $88 (versus a $74.57 close) at JPMorgan.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Ryanair Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: RYAAY) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC.

T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (NASDAQ: TROW) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) was started as Neutral with a $30 price target (versus a $24.68 close) at Wedbush Securities.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (NYSE: VRX) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $148 price target (versus a $107.23 close) at Morgan Stanley.

In case you missed Thursday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of AGCO, Celgene, Devon Energy, JD.com, Microsoft, SanDisk, Crocs, Illumina and over a dozen more companies.

ALSO READ: 5 High-Dividend Blue Chip Stocks on Sale After Market Sell-Off

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