Investing

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Gilead, Sprint, Starbucks, Southwest Air, Texas Instruments, Disney, Nordstrom and More

Jon C. Ogg

Published: July 26, 2016 8:50 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 5:17 am

Stocks hit a new high last week and are effectively looking for direction as very mixed earnings are coming with the start of a two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. All the potential headwinds have not scared investors away and they keep buying stocks on pullbacks.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning in an effort to find new investing and trading ideas for its readers. Some of these analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while other reports feature stocks to sell or avoid.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Tuesday morning:

Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) closed up 2.3% at $88.55 ahead of earnings and was indicated down 4.5% at $84.60 after the report included a forecast of lower revenue guidance. The stock was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham. It has a 52-week trading range of $77.92 to $120.37.

Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) was raised to Sector Weight from Underweight at Pacific Crest. This is after the shares rose 27% to $5.90 (on over 126 million shares traded!) after earnings. The 52-week trading range is $2.18 to $5.96.

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) may have made a key management change, but Goldman Sachs likes the stock now. The firm maintained its Buy rating but added Starbucks to the Conviction Buy list with a $69 price target (versus a $57.95 prior close).

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) saw its stock fall after earnings disappointed last week, and then it saw two key analyst downgrades from that reaction. Now we have its shares being raised to Buy from Hold with a $47 price target (versus a $37.36 close) at Evercore ISI. The stock closed down 1.2% at $37.36 on Monday and was up 0.3% at $37.49 in early Tuesday indications.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) was up 1.1% at $66.22 ahead of earnings and was last seen up 6.7% at $70.65 after earnings beat expectations. It was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $79 from $69 at Jefferies. Merrill Lynch raised its rating to Buy from Neutral with an $80 price objective. RBC Capital Markets reiterated its Outperform rating and raised its target to $75 from $66. Texas Instruments will post a new 52-week high, as the range of the past year has been $43.49 to $66.23.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform with a $108 price target (versus a $97.39 close) at FBR Capital Markets. The 52-week range is $86.25 to $122.08, and the consensus analyst price target is $109.27.

Other top analyst upgrades and downgrades were seen as follows:

• Calpine Corp. (NYSE: CPN) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $20 price target (versus a $14.69 close) at Deutsche Bank.
• Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the price target was raised to $53 from $45 (versus a $42.74 close) at Piper Jaffray.
• Parsley Energy Inc. (NYSE: PE) was started with an Outperform rating and assigned a $34 price target (versus $27.32 close) at Imperial Capital.
• Rockwell Collins (NYSE: COL) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity.
• Sanmina Inc. (NASDAQ: SANM) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig-Hallum.

If you are worried about stocks at all-time highs and bond yields close to all-time lows, here are 10 alternative investments outside of stocks and bonds.

Oppenheimer downgraded three solar stocks, and here are 10 stocks under $10 with huge analyst upside projections.

Monday’s top analyst calls included Allergan, General Electric, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Southwest Airlines, Williams Companies and many more.

You can follow @Jonogg on Twitter if you want the daily analyst calls and research updates directly on your Twitter feed.