Stocks were looking for direction on Monday morning ahead of Tuesday’s midterms and with new sanctions placed on Iran. While last week’s stock market bounce was handily off of the lows at the end of October, investors have seen lower upside after buying immediately after the big market pullbacks than in prior years. The investing community needs to be considering how they want to position their investments for the rest of the year and into 2019.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each weekday. Our goal is to find new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while 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 are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Monday, November 5, 2018.

Adamas Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ADMS) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was slashed to $18 from $75 (versus an $11.89 prior close, after a 29.9% drop) at Mizuho. Its 52-week trading range is $11.70 to $44.00.

Adverum Biotechnologies Inc. (NASDAQ: ADVM) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight and the target price was slashed down to $4 from $12 (versus a $3.34 close, after a 26.6% drop) at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) was maintained as Overweight and the target price was lowered to $203 from $215 (versus a $147.59 close, after a 2.4% drop) at KeyBanc Capital Markets. The 52-week range is $130.06 to $211.70, and the consensus target price was $218.04.

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AXL) was raised to Neutral from Underperform with a $13 target objective (versus an $11.49 close) at Merrill Lynch.

Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) was started as Buy at Merrill Lynch. It closed down 0.5% at $42.72 on Friday and has a 52-week range of $36.20 to $64.42. The consensus target price is $47.18.

Bluebird Bio Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $170 price target (versus a $132.69 close) at Janney. Shares were indicated up 2.4% at $135.88, and the consensus target price is $203.44.

Builders FirstSource Inc. (NASDAQ: BLDR) was downgraded to Underperform from In-Line with a $14 price target (versus a $14.48 close) at Evercore ISI.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with a $138 price target (versus a $115.60 close) at Credit Suisse. Chevron closed up 0.7% at $115.60 on Friday, and the consensus target price is $145.89. FULL DETAILS

Encana Corp. (NYSE: ECA) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley. BMO Capital Markets downgraded it to Market Perform from Outperform. Encana closed up 1% at $8.64 on Friday.

Goldman Sachs BDC Inc. (NYSE: GSBD) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $21.75 price target (versus a $21.34 close) at Wells Fargo.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus.

Middlesex Water Co. (NASDAQ: MSEX) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $53 target price (versus a $43.78 close) at Janney.

Parsley Energy Inc. (NYSE: PE) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $33 from $31 (versus a $24.73 close) at Macquarie.

Ryerson Holding Corp. (NYSE: RYI) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $21 target price (versus an $8.59 close) at Deutsche Bank.

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $75 target price (versus a $64.32 close) at Mizuho. The 52-week range is $47.37 to $65.68, and the consensus target price is $63.52.

Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight and the target price was slashed to $19 from $32 at Piper Jaffray. Shares closed down 11.5% at $17.76 on Friday, in a 52-week range of $17.50 to $28.07.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight and the target price is $27 at Morgan Stanley. Teva closed down 1.8% at $22.59 on Friday but was indicated up 1.4% at $22.91 on Monday, in a 52-week range of $11.41 to $25.96. Its consensus analyst target was $21.44.

Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UAA) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the target price was raised to $32 from $20 at Piper Jaffray. Shares closed up 1.5% at $23.70 on Friday and were indicated up another 2.8% at $24.36 on Monday. The consensus target price is $20.89.

Friday’s top analyst calls included Abiomed, Allscripts, Apple, Carbonite, Kraft Heinz, L3, Southern Copper, Starbucks, VeriSign, XPO and many more.

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