Investing

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Abercrombie, Nokia, Disney, Xerox, Verizon, Vodafone, Sarepta and More

Jon C. Ogg

Published: January 3, 2017 9:05 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 4:13 pm

Stocks hit all-time highs at the end of 2016, but the last week of the year was choppy and on thin volume. The first trading day of 2017 is indicated higher after overseas markets were pulling the indexes higher, with the Dow indicated up 130 points and the S&P 500 indicated up 16 points. Investors now find themselves looking for deeper value and growth opportunities, and the trend of buying pullbacks that has been in place for six years in a bull market that is almost eight years old seems to be alive and well.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst reports each day 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.

Investors have been rotating out of bonds, and they had put off profit taking until 2017 due to the belief that capital gains taxes would be lower under a Trump administration. Where that leaves the start of 2017 heading remains to be seen. These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Tuesday morning:

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and the price target was cut to $13 from $24 (versus a $12.00 prior close) at Jefferies. Oppenheimer also downgraded the stock to Underperform on the first trading day of 2017. It has a consensus analyst price target of $14.75 and a 52-week trading range of $11.85 to $32.83.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer, which removed its former $7.00 price target as a result of the rating. Nokia most recently closed at $4.81 per American depositary share, and the 52-week range is $4.04 to $7.55. The consensus price target is $5.65.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $120 price target (versus a $104.22 close) at Evercore ISI. This is shortly after a late-December call in which Merrill Lynch added Disney to its US 1 list of stocks to buy with a $125 price target. Disney’s 52-week range is $86.25 to $106.75, and it has a consensus price target of roughly $108.

Xerox Corp. (NYSE: XRX) has completed its separation of Conduent and the old company was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $10.50 price target (versus an $8.73 close) at JPMorgan. Due to the post-split prices ($6.29 or so) price data has been withheld.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup. Price target data was not seen, but Verizon closed at $53.38 on the last day of December and enjoyed a solid 2016, with hopes that the 4.3% dividend yield will be taxed lower. The consensus price target is $52.25, and the 52-week range is $43.79 to $56.95.

Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD) was started as Accumulate at Standpoint Research. It closed at $4.43 on Friday, versus a consensus target price of $38.10 and in a 52-week range of $24.17 to $31.69.

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: SRPT) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $65 price target (versus a $27.43 close) at Janney. The shares had a consensus analyst target of about $65 already, and to show just how volatile it is, its 52-week range is $8.00 to $63.73. Sarepta was last seen up 3% at $28.25.

There were also some real surprises for huge dividends in 2017’s new Dogs of the Dow.

Additional analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations were seen in over a dozen more stocks, including Athene, Barracuda Networks, DSW, Energizer, Michael Kors and PACCAR.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed out 2016 at 19,762.60. It may have not hit the elusive 20,000 mark, but it ended the year with a gain of 13.4% from the 17,425.03 close on the last trading day of 2015. This was quite close to the 24/7 Wall St. forecast of 19,700. but we still have a case that can be made for up to Dow 22,000 late in 2017. The S&P 500 ended the year at 2,238.83, up 9.5% from the 2,043.94 close of 2015. The Nasdaq closed at 5,383.12, for a gain of just 7.5% from the 5,007.41 close at the end of 2015.