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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: CSX, Intelsat, Kohl's, NIO, Rio Tinto, TripAdvisor, VMware and More

Jon C. Ogg

Published: March 6, 2019 8:40 am

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 11:51 pm

Stocks were indicated to open marginally lower on Wednesday after Tuesday’s sell-off. After the Dow Jones industrials had initially risen well over 3,000 points from its lows in January, investors also should be considering how they want their assets positioned for the rest of 2019 and beyond.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week. Our goal is to find new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some of these analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while others 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 Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) sell-side research service.

These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Wednesday, March 6, 2019.

BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens. Shares closed down 0.25% at $51.70 on Tuesday and have a consensus target price of $55.75.

CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel. The stock closed down 0.5% at $72.46 on Tuesday and was indicated down 2.3% at $70.80 on Wednesday. It had a consensus target price of $75.86.

Elastic N.V. (NYSE: ESTC) was started as Outperform with a $110 price target (versus an $87.14 prior close) at Oppenheimer.

Hexcel Corp. (NYSE: HXL) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Loop Capital. It closed down 0.5% at $71.25 ahead of this call, and its consensus target price was $72.31.

Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) was raised to Market Perform from Underperform at Raymond James. It closed down almost 16% at $17.76 ahead of this call, but the shares were indicated up over 5% at $18.70 on Wednesday.

Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS) was raised to Neutral from Underweight at Atlantic Equities. Kohl’s was up 7.3% at $71.33 a share on Tuesday, and the prior consensus target price was $75.31.

Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ: MYL) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $35 target price at Morgan Stanley. The stock was down 2.5% at $27.39 as of Tuesday’s close, and the consensus target price was $37.07.

NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral with a $6.80 price target at Merrill Lynch. The stock closed up almost 4% at $10.16 on Tuesday but was indicated down almost 17% at $8.50 after the Chinese electric car-maker reported a wider than expected loss.

Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.

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Pivotal Software Inc. (NYSE: PVTL) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs.

Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE: RIO) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS. Its American depositary shares closed up 0.4% at $58.92 and were indicated up 0.8% at $59.40 on Wednesday. The consensus analyst target is $62.12, and the 52-week trading range is $44.62 to $60.72.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight with a $17 price target (versus a $16.73 close) at Morgan Stanley. Teva had a consensus target price of $20.89.

TripAdvisor Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform with a $40 price target (versus a $52.32 close) at Cowen.

VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral with a $177 price target (versus a $172.69 close) at Goldman Sachs. VMware was among several tech leaders that have seen many upgrades prior to this call, and the consensus target price was $192.25. The 52-week trading range is $117.61 to $183.41.

Tuesday’s top analyst calls included Alphabet, Autodesk, Baxter, Salesforce.com, Tesla, Walgreens and many more.