Stocks were indicated to open marginally higher on Wednesday after a day off and after a strong Dow rally on Monday. Nasdaq stocks were also indicated higher on Wednesday despite falling on Monday. Even though this bull market is now well over eight years old, equity investors keep finding myriad new reasons to buy any major pullback or sell-off. Investors are also continuing to search for new investing and trading ideas.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week in an effort to find new investing and trading ideas for our readers. Some of the daily analyst reports cover stocks to buy. Other reports cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

Consensus analyst price target data are from the Thomson Reuters sell-side research service. Additional color and commentary also has been added on most of the daily analyst calls.

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and other research calls from Wednesday, July 5, 2017.

BHP Billiton Ltd. (NYSE: BHP) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Bernstein. The firm talked up plans of the new chairman to change how the company is run.

BioLife Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: BLFS) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $5 fair value estimate (versus a $2.62 prior close) at Janney. Shares closed at $2.62 and were indicated up 8% at $2.84 on Wednesday morning, but the pre-upgrade market cap was just $34 million. BioLife Solutions has a 52-week trading range of $1.43 to $3.58.

Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Wedbush Securities, and the price target was cut to $80 from $94 (versus an $83.56 close). The downgrade was driven by suboptimal ROE and return of capital measures.

Chemours Co. (NYSE: CC) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $45 price target (versus a $38.10 close) at Citigroup.

Constellation Brands Inc. (NYSE: STZ) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $220 from $194 (versus a $191.73 close) at Argus.

EQT Corp. (NYSE: EQT) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform with an $80 price target (versus a $59.75 close) at RBC Capital Markets. It has a consensus analyst target price target of $76.21 and a 52-week range of $49.63 to $78.84.

Novartis A.G. (NYSE: NVS) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse. The firm sees core EBITDA running 3% to 4% under estimates in the next few years. Novartis American depositary shares were indicated down 1.5% at $82.25 on Wednesday.

PPG Industries Inc. (NYSE: PPG) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $136 price target (versus a $110.61 close) at Argus.

Teradyne Inc. (NYSE: TER) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $39 price target (versus a $29.69 close) at Stifel.

Two Harbors Investment Corp. (NYSE: TWO) was reinstated as Outperform and was given a $10.50 price target (versus a $10.02 close) at Credit Suisse.

Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE: WY) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a $35 price objective (versus a $33.69 close) at Merrill Lynch.

The 11 top analyst upgrades of June had 100% to 400% upside to the analyst price targets.

Merrill Lynch released eight top thematic chart and fundamental buys for the third quarter.

Also, five retail plays may be immune to the endless expansion efforts of Amazon.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.