[cnxvideo id=”655420″ placement=”ros”]Stocks were indicated to open far lower on Wednesday after the surprising Trump victory over Clinton, but then almost all of those losses dissipated rather quickly, as the move has created many winners and losers in the stock market on Wednesday. Many analysts have been keying on their investment models and some strategists are dialing back just how bad their downside projections were based on this news.
One thing has not changed. For more than five years investors have found different reasons each time to keep the bull market alive and buy the sell-offs. Investors are also still looking for new ideas to generate gains or income ahead.
24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning of the week to find new investing and trading ideas for our readers. Some of these analyst research reports cover stocks to buy, and others cover stocks to sell or avoid.
Due to so many movers and so many political calls, this has had a focus around the election, and we have only focused on the more active or larger stocks receiving upgrades and downgrades. These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen Wednesday morning after the presidential election:
American Water Works Co. Inc. (NYSE: AWK) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Merrill Lynch as a post-Trump win beneficiary around infrastructure benefiting M&A and organic growth. This is also one of the top stocks for the next decade. The stock saw its price objective raised to $84 from $77. Its shares were fighting for direction after closing at $72.42 on Tuesday, within a 52-week range of $55.77 to $85.24.
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Delphi Automotive PLC (NYSE: DLPH) was downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Merrill Lynch, with this being a perceived sector loser from the election, making it a two-notch downgrade, versus a Neutral to Underperform downgrade from Merrill Lynch seen elsewhere in the industry. Delphi Automotive shares were last seen down almost 6% at $66.00 on Wednesday.
GoPro Inc. (NASDAQ: GPRO) may not seem like a pure election play, but we have seen three analyst calls so far on Wednesday because of a drone recall ahead of the holidays (ouch). GoPro shares closed up 2% at $10.86 ahead of the news but were last seen down 9.6% at $9.82. The stock was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush, with a target cut to $9 from $12. Dougherty lowered its rating to Sell from Neutral with a $6 price target, and Raymond James downgraded it to Market Perform from Outperform.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform with a $72 price target (versus a $70.03 prior close) at Robert W. Baird. Shares were last seen trading up 3.4% at $72.40 on Wednesday, in a 52-week range of $52.50 to $73.10.
Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE) was listed as one of the big Trump beneficiaries (see below) on Wednesday morning. Apparently Merrill Lynch sees the same, raising its rating to Buy from Neutral and raising its price objective to $57 from $50. The firm feels like the anti-trade stance will be a positive for domestic mills and that the potential infrastructure boost will drive sentiment more than anything.
United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) was raised to Buy from Hold at Jefferies, and the price target was raised to $26 from $17.50. This was already one of the key Trump beneficiaries due to protecting American companies, and shares were last seen trading up almost 16% at $24.25 on Wednesday, in a 52-week range of $6.15 to $27.64.
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In addition, here were nine big stock losers from Clinton losing her bid to become president, and here were 11 stock winners from the Trump victory.
With M&A a key focus ahead, here are four mergers that investors can still make money in, even though the deals have already been announced.
Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades included AT&T, CenturyLink, Goldman Sachs, OneMain and Priceline.
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