[cnxvideo id=”655424″ placement=”ros”]Stocks were indicated lower on Tuesday after Alcoa unofficially kicked off earnings season. Despite high valuations and despite many economic and geopolitical hurdles, every sell-off in the market has been met by investors buying stocks. Investors are also looking for new ideas to generate income or gains ahead.
24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning. The goal is to find new investing and trading ideas for our readers. Some analyst research reports cover stocks to buy, and some feature stocks to sell or to avoid.
These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Tuesday morning:
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $112 price target (versus an $88.22 prior close) at Goldman Sachs.
Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) was downgraded to Sell with a fair value estimate of $125 at Janney. They see less growth, less margin and less value. Cantor Fitzgerald has a Hold rating but lowered its target to $155 from $165.
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Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) was started with a Positive rating and assigned a $63 price target (versus a $51.79 close) at Susquehanna Financial.
Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $44 (versus a $37.97 close) at Jefferies. JPMorgan raised it to Neutral from Underweight.
Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) was raised to Hold from Sell with a $17 price target (versus a $17.56 close) at Evercore ISI.
Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with an $84 price target (versus a $70.50 close) at BMO Capital Markets.
Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $70 (versus a $59.26 close) at Jefferies.
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Other key analyst upgrades and downgrades were seen as follows:
Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) was started as Neutral with a $78 price target at Wedbush.
Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) was started as Neutral with a price target of $63 at Wedbush.
Finisar Corp. (NASDAQ: FNSR) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $39 price target (versus a $30.64 close) at Goldman Sachs.
FirstCash Inc. (NYSE: FCFS) was started as Outperform with a $58 price target (versus a $48.30 close) at Wedbush. Jefferies was also positive on FirstCash.
GrubHub Inc. (NYSE: GRUB) was started with a Neutral rating and assigned a $44 price target (versus a $40.84 close) at Roth Capital.
Lending Club Corp. (NYSE: LC) was started as Underperform with a $3.75 price target at Wedbush.
Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage Inc. (NYSE: NGVC) was started as Buy with a $14 price target (versus an $11.95 close) at Citigroup.
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Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Merrill Lynch.
Synchrony Financial (NYSE: SYF) was started as Outperform with a price target of $31 at Wedbush.
Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ: ZION) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform with a $32 price target (versus a $31.81 close) at FBR Capital Markets.
Monday’s top analyst calls were in Arch Coal, Dow Chemical, Netflix, Mylan, Under Armour, United Technologies and over a dozen more.
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