[cnxvideo id=”508518″ placement=”ros”]Stocks were indicated to open moderately lower on Monday, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 are both effectively just under all-time highs after the rally has continued. The bull market is now within a few days of being eight years old, and investors have bought after every single sell-off for about five years now. Those same investors are also looking for new ideas and overlooked opportunities.
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 analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while other reports cover stocks to sell or avoid.
Some color has been added on many of the following calls, and the consensus analyst price targets referenced are from Thomson Reuters. These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Monday, February 27, 2017:
Aflac Inc. (NYSE: AFL) was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $75 price target (versus a $71.71 prior close) at JPMorgan. Aflac has a 52-week trading range of $59.32 to $74.50 and a consensus analyst target price of $71.77.
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Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $64 price target (versus a $56.03 close) at Argus. Carnival has a 52-week range of $42.94 to $57.79 and a consensus price target of $58.15.
J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley. The shares hit a 52-week low of $6.18 on Friday, and the drop of 5.8% to $6.46 was actually above the prior 52-week low. Its 52-week high is $11.99.
Sunoco L.P. (NYSE: SUN) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup. Sunoco closed at $27.51, and it has a 52-week range of $21.01 to $37.25 and a consensus price target of $29.61.
Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA) was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral and the price target was slashed to $16 from $27 at Nomura. It has a 52-week range of $17.77 to $46.53, and the consensus analyst target is $23.00.
Also see our look at Warren Buffett’s 10 most profitable investments of 2017.
Other key analyst calls were seen in the following:
Agree Realty Corp. (NYSE: ADC) was downgraded to Hold from Buy but the price target was raised to $51 from $49 (versus a $50.74 close) at Wunderlich.
Cinemark Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CNK) was raised to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.
Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE: HBI) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) was raised to Buy from Hold at Evercore ISI.
Laureate Education Inc. (NASDAQ: LAUR) was started as Overweight with an $18 price target at Morgan Stanley. Stifel started it as Buy with a $17 price target.
Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (NYSE: PEG) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Steven Madden Ltd. (NASDAQ: SHOO) was raised to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley.
Telephone and Data Systems Inc. (NYSE: TDS) was downgraded to Market Perform from Strong Buy at Raymond James.
Terex Corp. (NYSE: TEX) was raised to Buy from Hold and the price target was raised to $37 from $36 (versus a $30.35 close) at Deutsche Bank.
Tesaro Inc. (NASDAQ: TSRO) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform but the price target was raised to $182 from $127 (versus a $186.90 close) at Robert W. Baird.
Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at MKM Partners.
Visteon Corp. (NYSE: VC) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy but the price target was raised to $97 from $87 (versus a $94.16 close) at Citigroup.
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