Stocks were indicated marginally higher on Tuesday ahead of the beginning of corporate earnings season. Oggonomics is continually looking for new ideas and research for long-term investors and short-term traders alike. This hunt is whether more investors and traders are looking or not. Wall Street’s daily flow of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations can be a strong source for some of those new ideas.
Many analyst calls are strategic bull calls by nature. Some analyst calls may even seem more permanent as analysts can maintain the same rating for years on some of their favorite and best performing stocks. These daily reports are usually skewed to “stocks to buy” but there are often other analyst calls featuring “stocks to sell” or “stocks to avoid.”
Investors should always keep in mind that no analyst call should act as the sole reason to buy or sell a stock. Analyst reports having an impact on shares also helps to reinforce one of the Oggonomics mantras that the so-called Efficient Market Hypothesis is not all that efficient in its assumptions.
Here are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations for Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) was maintained as Overweight but its price target was cut to $220 from $230 at KeyBanc Capital Markets. Advanced Micro Devices closed up 4% at $178.69 ahead of the call.
Angi Inc. (NASDAQ: ANGI) was started as Market Outperform and was assigned a $3.25 price target at JMP Securities. Angi previously closed at $1.87 with a 52-week range of $1.55 to $4.18.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was maintained at Neutral at Piper Sandler on a peak-valuation worry, but its price target was raised to $225 from $190 ahead of its new major iPhone refresh cycle. Apple closed up 0.6% at $227.82 ahead of the call.
Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) was maintained as Outperform but its price target was slashed down to $127 from $170 at Robert W. Baird.
Arhaus, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARHS) was started with a Buy rating and was assigned a $19.50 target price at Stifel. Arhaus shares closed down 6.6% at $14.76 on Monday and were indicated down another 1.4% at $14.55 on Tuesday.
Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was raised to Neutral from Underweight and its price target was raised to $42 from $37 at Piper Sandler. The upgrade is days ahead of earnings and BofA shares closed up 0.5% at $40.62 ahead of the call.
The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $84 price target at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Jefferies also reiterated Schwab as Buy but raised its target price to $88 from $85 in the call late Monday afternoon.
Chewy, Inc. (NYSE: CHWY) shares had nearly doubled from May to June as meme-stock frenzy took off, but after peaking in the high-$30s the stock is back to $24.80. Chewy was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus.
CME Group Inc. (NYSE: CME) was maintained as Overweight but its target price was trimmed down to $235 from $250 at Piper Sandler. CME closed down 0.7% at $194.97 the day ahead of the call.
Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) was started as Outperform and was assigned a $275 price target at Wolfe Research.
Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE: FIC) was started as Outperform and was assigned a $1,725 price target at Wolfe Research.
Intuitive Surgical, inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $490 from $435 at Piper Sandler. Intuitive Surgical shares closed at $444.54 ahead of the call with a 52-week range of $254.85 to $448.10.
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Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE: JMIA) was started as Buy with a $14 price target (versus $8.46 prior close) at Benchmark. Jumia shares were indicated up almost 5% at $8.87 ahead of Tuesday’s open with a 52-week range of $2.22 to $10.55.
Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $95 from $90 (versus $74.91 prior close, after a 3.9% gain) at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $165 from $160 at KeyBanc Capital Markets. Micron closed down 0.6% at $130.69 ahead of the call and its shares were up 0.6% at $131.45 in early trading indications on Tuesday.
Morphic Holding, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORF) saw its shares rise 75% to $55.74 on Monday after Lilly is acquiring the company in a $3.2 billion deal. Morphic was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform and its price target was cut to $57 from $70 at RBC Capital Markets as the deal negates its fair value on a standalone basis.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised to $775 from $725 at TD Cowen. Netflix shares closed down 0.7% at $685.74 ahead of the call and were trading up 0.6% at $690.50 ahead of Tuesday’s opening bell.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) was reiterated as Overweight and its price target was raised to $180 from $130 at KeyBanc Capital Markets. NVIDIA closed up 1.9% at $128.20 ahead of the call and it seems analysts only keep hiking their price targets despite such strong gains before the recent tempering of the stock.
QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was reiterated as Overweight and its price target was raised to $225 from $205 at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
RH (NYSE: RH) was started with a Buy rating and was assigned a $315 price target at Stifel. RH shares closed up 1.67% at $242.00 ahead of the call and the shares were up another 0.7% at $243.80 after the call, and the stock has a $207.25 to $406.38 range in the last 52-week period.
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Tempus AI, Inc. (NASDAQ: TEM) closed up 7.5% at $33.20 on Monday and was indicated up 3% more at $34.25 as analysts on Wall Street initiated coverage. Tempus AI was started as Buy with a $50 target at TD Cowen and started as Buy with a $48 target at Loop Capital. Tempus AI was started as Buy with a $45 target at Stifel and started as Overweight with a $44 target at Morgan Stanley. Needham & Co. started Tempus AI with a Buy rating and a $47 target.
Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (NYSE: ZETA) was reiterated as Outperform and its price target was raised to $20 from $18 at Oppenheimer. Zeta shares closed down 1.6% at $17.12 on Monday but the shares were indicated up nearly 3% at $17.60 on Tuesday after the call.
In case you missed Monday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of Akamai, Alphabet, Gilead, JPMorgan, Meta, NVIDIA, SolarEdge, Southwest and over a dozen more stocks.
