Stocks were indicated higher on Monday morning after a three-day Easter weekend, but many European markets were closed for the day. Now that stocks have risen but broken a five-week streak of gains, many investors are wondering if they need to start buying the dips or selling the rallies.
24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning of the week. The goal is to find new investing and trading ideas for our readers. Some of the daily analyst reports cover stocks to buy, and others cover stocks to sell or avoid.
These are top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Monday morning:
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) was started as Buy and was assigned a $244,500 price target (versus a $210,530 prior close) at UBS. Berkshire Hathaway has very few official analyst calls on it, and the 52-week trading range is $186,900 to $223,011.
CarMax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee CRT. The stock closed most recently at $48.83 and has a consensus analyst target price of $62.59 and a 52-week range of $41.25 to $75.40.
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Noble Corp. PLC (NYSE: NE) was reiterated and Buy and the price target was raised to $17 from $11 at Argus. The firm noted that commodity and oil prices have stabilized and started to recover, and that it sees more clarity on 2017 when the company reports first-quarter results. The stock closed at $10.43. The consensus price target is $9.63, and the 52-week range is$6.66 to $18.58.
Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) was started as Market Perform with a $92 price target (versus an $88.06 close) at Cowen. The consensus price target is $91.83, and the 52-week range is $69.79 to $94.12.
Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: PTLA) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was cut to $30 from $65 at Goldman Sachs. Credit Suisse kept an Outperform rating, but it lowered its target price to $34 from $47. Shares closed down 29.2% at $20.27 on Thursday, on 14 times normal volume after bad news on its blood clot trial results.
Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight and the price target was cut to $50 from $55 (versus a $50.86 close) at Barclays. The consensus price target is $56.93. The 52-week range is $42.24 to $71.90.
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Other key analyst upgrades and downgrades seen on Monday were in the following:
Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (NYSE: AEM) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
Atwood Oceanics Inc. (NYSE: ATW) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight and the price target was cut to $6 from $7 (versus an $8.43 close) at Barclays.
BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral with a $35 price target (versus a $33.69 close) at Piper Jaffray.
CF Industries Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CF) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight and the price target was cut to $34 from $40 (versus a $31.94 close) at Piper Jaffray.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was cut to $37 from $40 (versus a $33.46 close) at Sterne Agee CRT.
Corcept Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: CORT) was reiterated as Buy with a $8.00 fair value estimate (versus a $4.29 close) at Janney Montgomery Scott. The call is ahead of important data expected at ASCO from a rare profitable small biotech, with expectations for broad utility of selective glucocorticoid receptor inhibition.
Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $97 from $96 at Jefferies.
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ENSCO International PLC (NYSE: ESV) was downgraded to Negative from Neutral with an $8 price target (versus a $10.60 close) at Susquehanna.
Finish Line Inc. (NASDAQ: FINL) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $24 from $22 at Jefferies.
Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE: GG) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
H.B. Fuller Co. (NYSE: FUL) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the price target was raised to $46 from $37 at JPMorgan.
KBR Inc. (NYSE: KBR) was raised to Neutral from Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Performance Sports Group Ltd. (NYSE: PSG) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
SPX Corp. (NYSE: SPXC) was started as Outperform and the price target was put at $17 at Credit Suisse.
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