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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Apple, Atlassian, Hilton, Microsoft, MongoDB, Salesforce.com, Snap, Visa and More

Jon C. Ogg

Published: March 14, 2019 8:55 am

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 11:27 pm

Stocks were looking for direction on Thursday morning with a mixed opening. While investors have seen the market recover massively, only to sell-off and recover, they have to be continually considering how they want their investments and assets positioned for the rest of 2019 and for the long haul.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week to find new trading and investing ideas for investors and traders alike. Some analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while others cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

Additional commentary and trading data have been added on some of the daily analyst reports. The consensus analyst price targets mentioned and other valuation metrics are from the Thomson Reuters (Refinitiv) sell-side research service.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Thursday, March 14, 2019.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was started with an Outperform rating and assigned a $220 price target at Cowen. Apple previously closed at $181.71 and was indicated up 1% at $183.72 on Thursday.

Atlassian Corp. PLC (NASDAQ: TEAM) was started as Buy and assigned a $120 price target (versus a $108.58 prior close) at Mizuho.

General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $54 price target (versus a $47.08 close) at Deutsche Bank. Shares were indicated up 1% at $47.60, and the consensus target price was $45.35 ahead of the call.

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

Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $235 from $220 (versus a $228.50 close) at Wedbush Securities.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) was started as Buy and assigned a $135 price target at Mizuho (versus a $114.50 close). Microsoft had a consensus target price of $126.09 and a 52-week trading range of $87.08 to $116.18.

MongoDB Inc. (NASDAQ: MDB) blew away its earnings and raised guidance, and its shares were last seen trading up over 20% at $127.35 early on Thursday. KeyBanc Capital Markets reiterated it as Overweight and the price target was raised to $150 from $100. The prior 52-week range was $32.35 to $109.97, and the consensus target price was $93.62.

Northern Trust Corp. (NASDAQ: NTRS) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $115 price target at Buckingham Research.

Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was started as Buy at Mizuho and assigned a $185 target price. The stock previously closed at $159.81 and was indicated up 0.8% at $161.00, and its consensus target price was $181.41.

Semtech Corp. (NASDAQ: SMTC) was last seen down about 8% at $51.00 after its earnings reaction. Roth Capital downgraded it to Neutral from Buy with a target price of $55.

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ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW) was started as Buy at Mizuho and assigned a $265 target price (versus a $240.39 close).

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $15 price target (versus a $10.18 close) at BTIG.

Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK) was started as Buy at Mizuho and assigned a $150 target price. Shares closed at $124.25 ahead of the call.

Suncor Energy Inc. (NYSE: SU) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse. It closed up 1.3% at $33.62 ahead of this call.

Viking Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: VKTX) was maintained as Buy but the price target was lowered to $20 from $28 (versus an $8.25 close) at Maxim Group.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $162 from $150 (versus a $152.47 close) at Wedbush.

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Wednesday’s top analyst calls included ADT, Carnival, Chipotle, Comerica, Roku and many more.