Stocks are still down for the year. After the S&P 500 has risen a sharp 13% with an even stronger 1-100 from just last month and that the NASDAQ-100 has risen 17% in just the last month, the market indicators are flashing some cautious overbought levels. That does not mean markets cannot keep going, particularly since the market is still down for 2025. Wall Street is still cautious to issue formal upgrades and price target hikes as uncertainties lie in wait.
Oggonomics reviews the daily flow of analyst upgrades and downgrades to look for new ideas that might otherwise have been missed or overlooked. These research reports often contain information that the public may not have seen or recognized. Most of the recent feature report highlighted here have been about the few stocks analysts are still upgrading — but this week’s earnings brought some significant analyst downgrades. Some new “Sell” ratings have been issued, along with lower price targets that imply even more downside.
Investors should always keep in mind that no analyst report should ever be the sole reason to buy or sell a stock. Every investor should consider multiple factors and their own suitability before buying or selling a stock. And it should also be recognized that no analyst report has even been issued with a money-back guarantee nor a guaranteed gain to follow.
Here are five stocks that Wall Street issued Sell ratings (or their equivalents) on Friday, May 9, 2025.
CVRx, Inc. (NASDAQ: CVRX) may sound like it is safe as the medical devices company is in neuromodulation solutions for patients with cardiovascular diseases, but earnings disappointed, it faced account disruption, faces rate change risks, and choppiness in its future sales. These reasons are why JPMorgan downgraded this small company to Underweight from Neutral and slashed its price target by more than half — down to $7 from $15 in its call. CVRx was last seen down 36% at $4.92 on Friday. Its 52-week range is $4.61 to $18.55.
Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) seemed like it was being overly punished after earnings with an initial 10% drop. They beat the bottom line but revenue was light and comments about soft travel spending weighed. Piper Sandler was already at a Neutral rating with an unenthusiastic $174 price target before the earnings report. Now they downgraded it to Underweight (code for “Sell”) with a much lower $135 price target. This was the most negative report as some analysts actually raised their price targets. Expedia was last seen down 7.5% at $156.30 in its post-earnings reaction. Its 52-week range is $107.25 to $207.73.
International Paper Company (NYSE: IP) was already past its earnings report the prior week, but Wells Fargo decided to downgrade its stock to Underweight from Equal-Weight and further cut its price target down to $40 from the prior $45 level. This implies about 10% more downside, and the $44.15 price is against a 52-week range of $38.10 to $60.36. Wells Fargo is concerned about IP’s exposure to domestic and global containerboard buyers and believes that its 2025 guidance is at-risk while the company’s longer-term targets may be too aggressive when its valuations are already elevated. Wells Fargo also downgraded Packaging Corp. (NYSE: PKG) to Equal-Weight from Overweight on some of the same industry concerns.
Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) has seen headlines of beating earnings estimates and boosting its outlook for 2025. It is also trying to calm investor nerves on a Covid vaccine approval. JPMorgan was already at Underweight (its code for “Sell”) but the firm slashed its target to $7 from $9 after noting its “beat” was due to an acceleration of deferred revenue and it is just not very positive about it during a difficult regulatory environment around vaccines at the moment. Novavax was down 8% at $6.11 on Friday, and its 52-week range is $4.43 to $23.86. Its hard to imagine this ballooned into a $300 stock very briefly during the pandemic.
Wolfspeed, Inc. (NASDAQ: WOLF) has the fact that it produces chips in the U.S. going for it, but a lackluster earnings report comes with the CFO departing the company at the end of this month. And Biden’s CHIPs Act money may not be coming as Trump is undoing prior Biden policies. The shares were down 26% at $3.25 on Friday morning, and its 52-week range of $2.06 to $30.86 may spell out how bad things are here. Citigroup downgraded Wolfspeed to Sell from Neutral and slashed its price target down to $3 from $7 in the call on worries of its financial challenges ahead. JPMorgan also cut its rating to Underweight (code for “Sell” from Neutral as well.
Please note that all analyst ratings and price targets mentioned in this report are attributed to each brokerage firm by name. Oggonomics does not have any formal ratings nor any price targets of its own in these stocks.
