Stocks were indicated to open marginally lower on Tuesday. The market may have taken it on the chin on Monday over trade and currency fears with China, but the 1.2% drop in the S&P 500 and the 1.5% drop in the Dow Jones industrials were more reminiscent of a low-volume summer Monday with no real buyers to support the market. It is important to keep in mind that the markets hit all-time highs in late in July and that the bull market is now sitting at 10 and a half years old. Investors need to be considering exactly how they want their portfolios and assets positioned for the second half 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 traders and long-term investors alike. Some of the daily analyst calls cover stocks to buy. Other calls cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

We have provided these calls in a quick-hit summary for easy reading, and additional comments and trading data have been added on some of the calls. 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 on Tuesday, August 13, 2019.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) was started with a Hold rating and assigned a $32 target at Loop Capital. AMD closed down 5.1% at $32.43 ahead of the call, and the prior consensus target price was $33.05.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was maintained as Outperform with a $245 price target (versus a $200.48 prior close) at Wedbush Securities, with this call being around the upcoming iPhone and potential impact of tariffs. The consensus target price is $223.03, and the 52-week range is $142.00 to $233.47.

Avangrid Inc. (NYSE: AGR) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.

Azul S.A. (NYSE: AZUL) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Buckingham Research.

Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE: GOLD) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $22 target at Argus. Shares closed down 1% at $17.96 on Monday but were indicated up 2% at $18.34 on Tuesday, with a consensus target price of $16.93.

Bloom Energy Corp. (NYSE: BE) was maintained as Outperform but the target price was lowered to $12 from $16 at Raymond James. Robert W. Baird maintained its Neutral rating on Bloom but cut its target price to $9 from $16.

Clovis Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ: CLVS) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price objective was slashed to $7 from $13 (versus a $5.67 close) at Merrill Lynch.

Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ: CWCO) was reiterated as Buy with a $17 price target (versus a $14.17 close) at Janney, with the firm noting that its AEREX results continue to improve.

Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) was started with a Neutral rating at MKM Partners.

Domino’s Pizza Inc. (NYSE: DPZ) was started with a Neutral rating at MKM Partners.

D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $56 target price at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. It had a $50.69 consensus target price and its prior closing price was $46.99.

GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. (NYSE: GOL) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Buckingham Research.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) was started with a Hold rating and assigned a $50 target at Loop Capital. Shares closed down 0.8% at $45.60 ahead of the call, and the prior consensus target price was $45.31.

KB Home (NYSE: KBH) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $35 target price at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. It had a $28.75 prior consensus target price. The prior closing price was $26.32.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $250 price target at MKM Partners. McDonald’s previously closed at $217.16 and had a consensus target price of $231.54.

NextEra Energy Inc. (NYSE: NEE) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $234 from $207 (versus a $215.45 close) at Morgan Stanley. On the other hand, Barclays downgraded it to Equal Weight from Overweight with a $218 price target. It now has a $103 billion market cap and is the first U.S. utility to reach mega-cap status.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral and the price target was lowered to $50 from $74 (versus $44.99, after a 4.5% drop) at JPMorgan. Occidental’s prior consensus analyst target was $60.06.

Pampa Energia S.A. (NYSE: PAM) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Merrill Lynch, a day after the shares fell 53% after Argentina’s stock market was gutted as the pro-business president did not win the primary election.

Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $190 target price (versus a $140.72 close) at Compass Point. It had a $182.69 consensus target price, and the shares are down from a high of $167.56.

William Lyon Homes (NYSE: WLH) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with a $21 target price (versus a $17.13 close) at Wedbush, with the firm noting its recent sell-off looks overdone.

24/7 Wall St. has evaluated and addressed the possibility of U.S. interest rates facing a negative interest rate policy ahead. This is in the face of fresh economist calls of economic slowdowns potentially turning into recession from the likes of UBS, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, and we have included live snapshots of federal funds futures and the CME FedWatch Tool to show how unlikely that culmination really looks.

Goldman Sachs is calling for fresh positive investing thesis for India and the nation’s more than 1.3 billion people. Can it be trusted this time?

Should dividend investors be looking at Big Biotech over Big Pharma for defensive income ahead?

Monday’s top analyst calls included Bluebird Bio, Genmab, GTT Communications, Humana, National Oilwell Varco, News Corp., ONEOK, Symantec, Uber Technologies and many more companies.

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