Stocks have continued to firm up after Monday’s big sell-off as trade war tensions continue to escalate with China. Stocks were indicated to open slightly higher on Thursday as well, but the gains of 0.25% or less on the three major indexes implied that the day’s direction was far from assured. Investors have multiple reasons that might magnify the “sell in May and go away” mindset, particularly as the major market indexes are still quite close to all-time highs. It’s time for investors to consider how they want their portfolios positioned for the rest of 2019.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week. Our goal is to find new trading and investing ideas for our readers. Some of the daily analyst reports cover stocks to buy, but other reports 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 and other valuation metrics are from the Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) sell-side research service.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Thursday, May 16, 2019.

Appian Corp. (NASDAQ: APPN) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at William Blair. Shares closed up 0.8% at $34.15 ahead of the call and were indicated up 2.7% on Thursday morning. The consensus target price was $31.67.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) closed up 0.8% at $52.44 ahead of earnings, and the stock was indicated up over 3% at $54.25 in early Thursday trading as the earnings pleased investors and as the company may not have much to fear about China trade wars compared to others. Credit Suisse maintained its Neutral rating but raised its target to $52 from $47. Cisco’s consensus target price was $56.46 ahead of these moves.

Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) was maintained with a Buy rating at Citigroup, but the firm lowered its target price to $170 from $180 (versus a $144.84 close, after another 1.5% drop) in the call. Deere continues to be a considered a ground-zero stock in the China trade war, and this was a $166 stock just ahead of the tariff escalations.

Dillard’s Inc. (NYSE: DDS) was reiterated as Underperform at Wedbush Securities, but the firm further cut its price target to $54 from $65. This is after the shares closed down almost 1% at $63.39. The 52-week range is $55.73 to $98.75, and the consensus target price is $64.00.

Duke Realty Corp. (NYSE: DRE) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $33 target price (versus a $30.56 close) at Goldman Sachs. It has a consensus target price of $32.82, and the industrial landlord yields about 2.75%.

Farfetch Ltd. (NYSE: FTCH) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $30 from $29 at Credit Suisse, with the call coming after the company reported top and bottom line beats on strong orders and customers offsetting currency headwinds. The firm also noted that Farfetch seems to be progressing faster than expected in its rollout with JD.com.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $156 from $152 at Credit Suisse. The firm’s call comes after the Annual Business Review encouraged the perspective on key marketed and pipeline products and the company’s overall bullish commentary pointing to pharma segment sales alone reaching $50 billion by 2023.

KB Home (NYSE: KBH) was raised to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets. This had shares indicated up 1.2% at $27.11 on Thursday, in a 52-week range of $16.82 to $28.34. The consensus target price is $26.00.

L3 Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LLL) was reiterated as Overweight at Barclays, and the firm raised its target price to $270 from $245. The stock closed up about 0.7% at $237.11, and it has a 52-week range of $158.76 to $239.35 (with that high just hit on Wednesday). The consensus target price was $241.18 ahead of this adjustment.

Liberty Property Trust (NYSE: LPT) was started with a Neutral rating and assigned a $49 target price (versus a $48.00 close) at Goldman Sachs. It has a consensus target price of $50.00, and the commercial real estate player yields about 3.3%.

Livent Corp. (NYSE: LTHM) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus, with the independent research firm noting the company’s weaker outlook for the downgrade. After closing up 1.1% at $7.79, shares were indicated to open down about 2.3% at $7.61 after the call. The 52-week trading range is $7.56 to $19.90.

Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) was just featured as a top dirt cheap value stock with solid dividends and, despite a lackluster earnings reaction the prior day, Goldman Sachs has now raised Macy’s to a less-cautious Neutral rating from the prior dreaded Sell rating. Shares closed down 0.5% at $21.70, in a 52-week range of $21.08 to $41.99. The previous consensus target price was $25.79.

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) was reiterated as Overweight at Barclays, which raised its target price to $340 from $325 in the call. Shares closed down 0.4% at $294.49 ahead of the call, and the consensus target price is $321.35.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus in a post-Anadarko acquisition evaluation of the deal. The firm also reiterated its Hold rating on Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) as part of the call.

Owens Corning (NYSE: OC) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura/Instinet, and the firm lowered its target price to $48 from $78, after the shares closed down 0.7% at $48.96 on Wednesday.

Scorpio Tankers Inc. (NYSE: STNG) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the price target was raised to $34 from $29 (versus a $26.90 close) at JPMorgan. The stock was indicated up 1.6% at $27.35, and it has a 52-week range of $14.80 to $32.50 and a consensus target price of $33.65.

SunRun Inc. (NASDAQ: RUN) was started with an Overweight rating at Barclays, which also assigned a $21 target price. The stock closed up one cent at $14.78 a share on Wednesday, and it was indicated up 1.1% at $14.95 on Thursday. The 52-week range is $8.81 to $17.44, and the consensus target price is $19.94.

Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) was reiterated as Outperform with a $105 price target at Credit Suisse. The prior close was $83.37, and the firm has raised its 2019 and 2020 earnings estimates to $7.21 from $5.55 per share and to $10.37 from $9.73 per share, respectively. Valero has a 52-week trading range of $68.81 to $126.98, and its consensus target price was $106.19.

Zayo Group Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ZAYO) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was lowered to $35 from $38 (versus a $32.86 close) at Citigroup. This is just a day after Cowen downgraded Zayo to Market Perform from Outperform.

Warren Buffett may not be analyst, and he claims not to even care about Wall Street analysts for that matter, but Berkshire Hathaway released its top stock holdings showing many changes over the first quarter of 2019 to end with nearly $200 billion in stocks (including the changes seen in the new Amazon stake and in banks and airlines).

24/7 Wall St. has screened out 13 dirt cheap dividend stocks from the S&P 500 that are deep value stocks trading at less than 10 times earnings.

Credit Suisse has opined about Canadian banks having a growing uncertainty on loan losses and credit growth decelerating. The firm sees Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD) and Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE: BNS) as its only two with new Outperform ratings that are expected to report the strongest growth among Canada’s big six banks. Bank of Montreal (NYSE: BMO) is Credit Suisse’s only Underperform rating of the group in which it sees more concerns. CIBC, RBC, National Bank of Canada and Laurentian Bank all were assigned Neutral ratings.

Jefferies has four top picks for value investors seeking large implied upside.

Wednesday’s top analyst calls included Alphabet, Applied Materials, Bluebird Bio, JD.com, Marvell Technology, Rambus, Tilray, Zillow and many more.

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