Stocks had been higher on Monday but were really just looking for direction on Monday morning. Friday’s 369-point gain barely made the week positive, but the trend that keeps emerging is that investors want to buy stocks on pullbacks. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning to find new investing and trading ideas for its readers. Some analyst reports cover stocks to buy, and other calls cover stocks to sell or avoid. These are this Monday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $55.00 price target at Jefferies. The stock has a consensus price target of $50.97 and a 52-week trading range of $39.00 to $51.74.

Bluebird Bio Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE) was down after a data presentation was not as good as expected. Roth downgraded its rating to Neutral from Buy and cut the price target to $62 from $121. Other downgrades have been seen by Morgan Stanley (Equal Weight) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Neutral).

Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) finally (but unsurprisingly) lowered guidance after its E. coli outbreak has hurt its trends. Now we have formal downgrades from Cowen and Guggenheim, and we have lower price targets from Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets.

Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) was raised to Buy from Hold and the price target was raised to $99 from $85 (versus an $86.62 prior close) at Deutsche Bank. Eli Lilly has a consensus price target of $97.53 and a 52-week range of $68.31 to $92.85.

Ferrari N.V. (NYSE: RACE) was started as Overweight with a $56.00 price target (versus a $48.55 close) at Morgan Stanley. Ferrari has a consensus analyst price target of $53.31 and a post-IPO range of $44.65 to $60.97.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) was reiterated as Buy with a $59.00 price target (versus a $55.67 close) at Jefferies. Wells Fargo has a consensus analyst price target of $58.55 and a 52-week range of $47.75 to $58.77.

Additional analyst upgrades and downgrades on Monday were seen in the following:

Akebia Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: AKBA) was started as Buy with a $24 price target at HC Wainwright.

Ambarella Inc. (NASDAQ: AMBA) was maintained as Hold at Deutsche Bank, but the price target was cut to $60 from $70.

America Movil SAB de C.V. (NYSE: AMX) was started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Securities.

BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) was raised to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James.

Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) ended up down 6% at $40.04 on Friday after missing earnings. Now on Monday we have seen Piper Jaffray cut the rating to Neutral from Overweight. Big Lots has a 52-week range of $38.15 to $51.11.

KBR Inc. (NYSE: KBR) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $19 price target (versus a $19.45 close) at Goldman Sachs.

Motorola Solutions Inc. (NYSE: MSI) was started as Hold with a $68 price target (versus a $72.11 close) at Jefferies.

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight and the price target was raised to $95 from $76 at Barclays.

Polaris Industries Inc. (NYSE: PII) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.

Sovran Self Storage Inc. (NYSE: SSS) was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $33 from $30 (versus a $28.18 close) at Argus.

Thompson Creek Metals Co. Inc. (NYSE: TC) was downgraded to Underperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets.

Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens.

In case you missed Friday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they included Ambarella, GoPro, LinkedIn, Mattel, Marriott, Qualcomm, Symantec and over a dozen more.

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