The futures were lower Monday as investors and traders prepare for another onslaught of third-quarter earnings results. The S&P 500 enjoyed its best week since July, closing at its highest level in a month, following some very positive upside earnings reports from Wall Street’s biggest banks, which helped to cool the worries of negative macro and economic data. Stronger than expected retail sales and the lowest claims for unemployment since the pandemic started were additional key positives. Treasury yields climbed as sellers were busy across the yield curve, especially on the short end.

Top strategists across Wall Street remain focused on rising interest rates, quantitative easing tapering due to begin soon, big increases in energy costs, ongoing supply chain issues and stagflation worries. Toss in the debt ceiling and China worries, and the cauldron continues to simmer.

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 Monday, October 18, 2021.

AKA Brands Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKA): Truist Securities started coverage with a Buy rating and a huge $16 price target. Piper Sandler started coverage with an Overweight rating and a $13 price objective. Since the recent initial public offering, the stock has traded between $7.79 and $10.88. The shares closed Friday at $8.52. The stock was up almost 5% in Monday’s premarket.

Avaya Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: AVYA): JPMorgan lowered its Overweight rating to Neutral and cut the price target from $32 to $23. The consensus target is $32. The stock closed trading on Friday at $19.93.

Chubb Ltd. (NYSE: CB): Morgan Stanley resumed coverage with an Equal Weight rating and a $200 price target. The stock closed Friday at $181.31, near the top of its 52-week range of $116.82 to $187.90.

Consolidated Edison Inc. (NYSE: ED): BofA Securities downgraded the utility giant to Underperform from Neutral and lowered the $74 price target to $68. That compares with the $74.61 consensus and Friday’s close at $74.47.

Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE: CLB): BofA Securities downgraded the stock to Underperform from Neutral and dropped the price objective to $32 from $36. The stock closed at $31.54 on Friday, and it has traded as high as $49.87 in the past year.

Domino’s Pizza Inc. (NYSE: DPZ): MKM Partners reiterated its Neutral rating on the shares but lifted the price target to $525 from $515. The consensus target is $532.81. The last trade for Friday came in at $454.91.

Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX): Evercore ISI resumed coverage with an Outperform rating and a $289 price target. That compares with the $280.94 consensus target and Friday’s closing share price of $263.95.

Five9 Inc. (NASDAQ: FIVN): Morgan Stanley raised the shares to Overweight from Equal Weight and has a $200 price target. The consensus target is $201.33. The stock was last seen on Friday at $153.96.

Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE: GNRC): Truist Securities started coverage of the generator leader with a Buy rating and a $500 price target. The posted consensus target is $505.88. The stock popped almost 8% on Friday to close at $451.94.

Magna International Inc. (NYSE: MGA): Morgan Stanley resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $96 price target. The consensus target is up at $107.20. The final trade for Friday was reported at $86.12.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU): BofA Securities resumed coverage of the chip giant’s shares with a Neutral rating and a $76 price target. The consensus target is much higher at $103.32. The stock closed Friday at $67.68.

NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP): Goldman Sachs downgraded the shares from Neutral to Sell with an $81 price target. The consensus target is $95.86. The stock closed Friday at $94.42, which was up almost 5% for the day. Shares were down over 3% in the premarket though.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY): Truist Securities upgraded the oil giant to Buy and boosted the price target to $50 from $35. The consensus target is $37.24. The stock was last seen on Friday trading at $31.66.

Rocket Companies Inc. (NYSE: RKT): Zacks named this as its Bull of the Day stock. The analyst ponders whether this stock will lift off into earnings. The stock most recently closed at $16.48 and has a consensus price target of $18.54.
Toast Inc. (NASDAQ: TOST): Goldman Sachs started coverage with a Neutral rating and a $52 price target. No consensus target was available as the stock had a recent red-hot IPO. Since the shares started trading, they have bounced between $49.00 and $65.99. The last trade on Friday was reported at $56.21 a share.

United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X): The Morgan Stanley downgrade of the venerable steel giant to Underweight from Overweight included a price target cut to $17 from $35. The consensus target is $33.19. The last trade Friday was reported at $22.11. Shares were down almost 4% in premarket trading.

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SPCE): UBS downgraded the meme stock favorite to Sell from Neutral and slashed the target price to $15 from $26. The consensus target is up at $31.09. The last trade to hit the tape Friday was reported at $20.01, down a stunning 17% on the day.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS): Barclays downgraded the entertainment giant to Equal Weight from Overweight and dropped the target price to $175 from $210. The shares closed Friday at $176.46 in a 52-week range of $117.23 to $203.02.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC): Goldman Sachs lowered its Buy rating on the hard disk drive giant to Neutral and slashed the $91 target price to $62. The shares closed on Friday at $55.41 but have traded as high as $78.19 in the past year.

ZScaler Inc. (NASDAQ: ZS): Recommending that investors consider an exit before earnings, Zacks has named this cloud security provider’s stock as the Bear of the Day. Shares last closed at $292.70 apiece, and the consensus price target is $308.72.

Five top real estate investment trusts pay dependable distributions above the 5% level. With the prospect of continued low interest rates, and the stock market extremely risky and overbought, it makes sense to have solid assets like real estate in your portfolio.

Five top companies are expected to lift the dividends they pay to shareholders this week, and their stocks are rated Buy across Wall Street, making them excellent total return candidates.

Monday’s early meme stock movers included FuelCell Energy and Virgin Galatic.

Friday’s early top analyst upgrades and downgrades included Applied Materials, Autodesk, Bank of America, BP, Broadcom, Micron Technology, Morgan Stanley and Western Digital. Analyst calls seen later in the day were on Domino’s Pizza, Lam Research, Moderna and more.

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