The futures traded higher across the board Thursday. Like in the movie “Groundhog’s Day,” every trading day this week seems to be a replay of the preceding day, and that was once again the playbook for Wednesday as both the Dow Jones industrials and the S&P 500 printed new all-time highs, while the sellers were out again and the Nasdaq closed lower. Following the trend, the transport index had another stellar day, up over 1%, and debt sellers returned to the Treasury market as rates across the yield curve rose. The U.S. Department of Labor reported Wednesday that its Consumer Price Index rose 5.4% in July from a year earlier, in line with June’s figure and matching the largest jump since August 2008.

Despite worries and the potential for a “taper tantrum” like we saw in 2013, the Federal Reserve is vowing to keep interest rates contained. This comes as some of the Fed governors and media pundits are hinting that a tapering of the $120 billion per month purchase of government and mortgage debt known as quantitative easing could be in the works sooner rather than later.

With major Wall Street firms still warning of the potential for impending 5% to 10% correction across the board, it makes sense for investors to continue building some cash reserves into the market strength while repositioning portfolios for the rest of 2021.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week with a goal of finding new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some of these daily analyst calls cover stocks to buy. Other calls cover stocks to sell or avoid. Remember that no single analyst call should ever be used as a basis to buy or sell a stock. Consensus analyst target data is from Refinitiv.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Thursday, August 12, 2021.

Apollo Medical Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AMEH): Barclays started coverage on the stock with an Equal Weight rating and a $92 price target. The consensus price target is just $75. The stock closed Wednesday at $79.87, which was down almost 3% for the day.

Array Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRY): Guggenheim started coverage on the solar panel tracking company with a Buy rating and a $28 price target. The consensus target is $27.70. The last trade for Wednesday was posted at $15.32.

Canopy Growth Corp. (NYSE: CGC): Jefferies raised the cannabis stock to Hold from Underperform. Over the past 52 weeks, the shares have traded between $13.83 and $56.50. No consensus price objective was available. The stock closed Wednesday at $18.88, which was down over 3% on the day.

Carrier Global Corp. (NYSE: CARR): UBS downgraded the HVAC behemoth to Neutral from Buy but raised the price target to $60 from $50. The consensus target is $52.06. Wednesday’s last trade came in at $56.89.

Cohu Inc. (NASDAQ: COHU): Goldman Sachs downgraded it to Sell from Neutral and chopped the price target to $30 from $37. The consensus target is $59. The shares closed Wednesday at $33.94 but were down almost 4% in the premarket trading.

Exelon Corp. (NASDAQ: EXC): Mizuho raised the stock to Neutral from Underperform and also boosted the target price to $47.50 from $40. That compares with the $50.21 consensus target and Wednesday’s last print of $48.20.

Fastly Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLY): Zacks named this cloud company as its Bear of the Day stock. The analyst points out earnings estimates are imploding faster than the stock, so investors should be careful bottom fishing here. Shares last closed at $42.08, and the consensus price target is $56.22.

GXO Logistics Inc. (NYSE: GXO): Goldman Sachs started coverage with an Equal Weight rating and a $68 price target. A consensus price objective was not available. The shares were last seen on Wednesday at $69.40, after rising over 5% on the day.

HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA): Barclays downgraded the hospital giant to Equal Weight from Overweight and lowered the price target to $267 from $275. The consensus target is $225.62. The stock closed on Wednesday at $241.16.

HollyFrontier Corp. (NYSE: HFC): Wells Fargo upgraded the refiner to Equal Weight from Underweight and raised the price target to $31 from $28. The consensus target is up at $39.18. The last trade for Wednesday came in at $29.93.

Lyft Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT): Northcoast raised the ride-sharing stock to Buy from Neutral and has a $65 price target. The consensus target is $69.34. The closed at $53.91 on Wednesday.

Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA): Daiwa Securities downgraded the credit card giant to Neutral from Outperform and has a $385 price target. The consensus target is much higher at $431.07. The last trade for Wednesday was posted at $364.24.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU): Morgan Stanley downgraded the semiconductor leader to Equal Weight from Overweight and has a $75 price target. That compares with the much higher consensus target of $118.63 and Wednesday’s closing price of $75.03.

OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE: OGE): Mizuho raised the stock to Buy from Neutral and also lifted the price target to $39 from $32. The consensus price target is $36.56. The last trade for Wednesday came in at $35.64.

Paysafe Ltd. (NYSE: PSFE): BofA Securities started coverage on the stock with a Buy rating and a $15 price target. The consensus price objective is $16.43. The closing share price on Wednesday was $10.38.
Pinterest Inc. (NYSE: PINS): This was named as the Bull of the Day stock at Zacks. The analyst says that 2020 comps are tough during reopening, but this social-dreaming-shopping platform has big growth ahead. Shares most recently closed at $56.80 and have a consensus price target all the way up at $84.31.

Rackspace Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: RXT): Raymond James downgraded its Strong Buy rating to Market Perform. Over the past year, the shares have traded between $15.44 and $26.43 apiece, and the consensus target price is $26.50. The stock closed at $16.67 on Wednesday.

Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: STX): Goldman Sachs raised the hard disk drive leader to Neutral from Sell and boosted the target price to $98. The consensus target is $102.90. The last trade on Wednesday hit the tape at $94.13.

Silicon Motion Technology Corp. (NASDAQ: SIMO): Morgan Stanley’s upgrade to Equal Weight from Underweight included a target price hike to $78 from $68. That compares with the $83.40 consensus target and Wednesday’s closing price of $75.93.

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SPCE): Credit Suisse resumed coverage with a Neutral rating and lowered the target price to $30 from $33. The consensus target is $39.20. The last trade for Wednesday was reported at $27.36, which was down almost 13% for the day.

Wendy’s Co. (NYSE: WEN): Evercore ISI raised shares of the popular fast-food chain to Outperform from In line, and it increased the price target to $27 from $24. The consensus target is $26.11. The stock closed on Wednesday at $22.85, up almost 4% on the day.

The five stocks with the highest relative overweight percentage in the portfolios of active fund managers all have Buy ratings at top Wall Street firms. BofA Securities sees them as very strong ideas for growth investors with a degree of risk tolerance.

Tech stocks appear to be set to keep running higher, and Wedbush has three picks that are looking to outperform the market in the coming months.

Also see which biotech-focused SPAC Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is buying into now.

Wednesday’s early top analyst upgrades and downgrades included American Airlines, Blackstone, Cleveland-Cliffs, Delta Air Line, Dick’s Sporting Goods, L3Harris Technologies, KKR, Nikola, Splunk and Virgin Galactic. Analyst calls seen later in the day were on BioNTech, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Workhorse and more.

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