Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Blue Apron, Energy Transfer, Funko, Symantec, Tesla, Teva, TripAdvisor and More

Investing

Published: August 3, 2018 9:20 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 7:55 pm

The major equity indexes were indicated marginally lower after the payrolls report looked light prior to adding in higher revisions. That said, the drops were small and the Nasdaq was indicated marginally positive. Investors have had less success buying the all the stock market dips in 2018 than in prior years. Many investors also are reconsidering how they want their investments positioned ahead of the midterm elections and with international trade concerns.

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

Additional commentary has been added on most of the daily analyst reports, along with trading history. The consensus analyst price targets and other valuation metrics are from the Thomson Reuters sell-side research service.

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and other research calls from Friday, August 3, 2018.

Cree Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $61 price target. The stock closed up 1.3% at $47.69 a share on Thursday.

Blue Apron Holdings Inc. (NYSE: APRN) was maintained as Equal Weight but the target price was cut to $1.30 from $1.90 at Morgan Stanley. This was after a 24% drop to $1.83 on Thursday after 2018 and 2019 guidance showed no major turnaround.

Energy Transfer Partners L.P. (NYSE: ETP) was maintained as Equal Weight and the target price was raised to $27 from $22 at Morgan Stanley. It was maintained as Overweight and the target price was raised to $21 from $19 at Morgan Stanley.

EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) was maintained as Buy but the price target was cut to $147 from $148 (versus a $125.93 prior close) at Stifel.

Funko Inc. (NASDAQ: FNKO) was reiterated as Buy but the price target was raised to $20 from $12 at Stifel.

GoPro Inc. (NASDAQ: GPRO) posted a narrower than expected loss, and the 2.1% drop to $5.99 on Thursday was reversed with a 2.6% gain to $6.15 on Friday morning. Wedbush Securities maintained it as Neutral.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) was started as Overweight with a $145 price target (versus a $114.35 close) at Barclays.

Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (NASDAQ: SFM) was reiterated as Buy and the target was raised to $28 from $27 at UBS.

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SunRun Inc. (NASDAQ: RUN) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight but the price target was raised to $15 from $8 at Morgan Stanley. The stock closed up 3% at $14.77 on Thursday, but the shares were down 4.1% at $14.16 on Friday.

Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) was up 2.2% at $20.88 on Thursday, but the stock was down 12.8% at $18.20 on Friday. UBS maintained it as Neutral but cut the price target to $21 from $23. Stifel maintained its Hold rating but cut its target to $19 from $21.

Synchrony Financial (NYSE: SYF) was raised to Neutral from Sell and the target price was raised to $33 from $32 at UBS.

Teradata Corp. (NYSE: TDC) was reiterated as Buy and the price target was raised to $53 from $49 at Stifel. Shares closed up 1.7% at $38.66 on Thursday, in a 52-week range of $29.90 to $44.27.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) was started with a Hold rating and assigned a $336 price target. The stock closed up 16% at $349.55 on Thursday.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA) was maintained as Equal Weight but the price target was raised to $20 from $19 (versus a $21.61 close) at Morgan Stanley.

TripAdvisor Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) closed down 11.2% at $51.18 after earnings on Thursday. Stifel maintained it as Hold and raised the target to $48 from $42, and Needham raised it to Hold from Underperform.

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Tableau Software Inc. (NYSE: DATA) was reiterated as Buy and the target price was raised to $130 from $114 at UBS.

Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Benchmark. It closed down 19.5% at $11.88 on Thursday, and it has a 52-week trading range of $10.85 to $26.50.

WPX Energy Inc. (NYSE: WPX) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs.

YRC Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW) was maintained as Buy but the target price was cut to $15 from $17 (versus a $9.99 close) at Stifel. The 52-week range is $8.07 to $17.61 a share.

Thursday’s top analyst calls were in Cedar Fair, Enterprise Products, Foot Locker, Fitbit, Nike, Square, Tesla, Under Armour and many more companies.

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