Stocks were mixed on Wednesday after private sector payroll growth was much slower and more muted than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average remains close to the 40,000 milestone. Oggonomics is continually hunting for new ideas and research for long-term investors and short-term traders alike. Wall Street’s daily flow of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations can be a strong source for some of those new ideas.
Many of the daily analyst calls are “strategic bull” calls by their nature. Other analyst calls will seem more permanent as analysts can maintain the same rating for years in many cases. While analysts usually feature stocks to buy they also sometimes offer ideas for stocks to sell or stocks to avoid.
Investors should always consider that no analyst call should likely act as a sole reason to buy or sell a stock. These daily analyst calls and the impact from the calls should also help prove one of the Oggonomics mantras that the Efficient Market Hypothesis is not all that accurate in its assumptions.
Here are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations for Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) was raised to Buy from Hold with an $185 price target at HSBC.
Accenture PLC (NYSE: ACN) was maintained as Buy at BofA but the firm lowered its price objective to $365 from $419 in the call. Accenture closed at $288.77 ahead of the call.
Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight and the price target was raised to $225 from $165 at Barclays. AMAT shares closed up 3.3% at $219.25 ahead of the call.
EVgo, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVGO) was started with a Buy rating and was assigned a $3 price target at Benchmark. EVgo was last seen up 3% at $2.00 after the call.
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARWR) was started with a Neutral rating and assigned a $31 price target at Goldman Sachs. Arrowhead was last seen down 2.5% at $24.65.
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) was reiterated as Buy and the target was raised to $405 from $400 at Canaccord Genuity. Oppenheimer reiterated its Outperform rating and raised its price target to $400 from $355. CrowdStrike was last seen up over 4% at $319.05 after the call.
Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was cut to $6.25 from $6.50 at Roth MKM Partners, based on price objective being met and a more competitive direction ahead.
Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE) was maintained as Underperform at BofA but the firm raised its price objective to $95 from $80 in the call. Oppenheimer reiterated its Outperform rating and raised its price target to $140 from $130. Guidewire was last seen up 16% at $125.50 in its post-earnings reaction.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (NYSE: HPE) was last seen up over 13% at $20.00 after guidance and earnings topped estimates. Hewlett Packard Enterprise was maintained as Neutral at BofA but the firm raised its price objective to $22 from $19 in the call. Morgan Stanley kept its Equal Weight rating but raised its target to $21 from $19; UBS maintained its Neutral rating but raised its target to $17 from $16.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc (NASDAQ: JAZZ) was initiated with a Buy rating and was assigned a $169 price target (versus $104.48 prior close) at Goldman Sachs.
KLA Corp. (NASDAQ: KLAC) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight and the price target was raised to $765 from $630 at Barclays. KLA shares closed up 2% at $766.00 ahead of the call.
Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) was maintained as Equal Weight but its price target was raised to $900 from $865 at Barclays. Lam Research shares closed up 4.1% at $960.72 ahead of the call.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) was reiterated as Strong Buy and the price target was raised to $550 from $525 at Raymond James. Meta was last seen up 2.6% at $489.30 on Wednesday.
Proto Labs, Inc. (NYSE: PRLB) was initiated with an Overweight rating and it was assigned a $44 price target at Cantor Fitzgerald. Proto Labs was last seen up 2.4% at $31.05 after the call.
Relmada Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: RLMD) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral and the price target was cut to $2 from $3 at Goldman Sachs. The shares were down 7% at $2.72 after the cut and the call was ahead of Phase 3 adjunctive major depressive disorder drug study data.
Smith & Nephew (NYSE: SNN) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
Sunoco LP (NYSE: SUN) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the price target was raised to $61 from $60 at JPMorgan.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) was raised to Buy from Hold with an $580 price target at HSBC.
Xometry Inc. (NASDAQ: XMTR) was started as Underweight with a $13 price target at Cantor Fitzgerald. Xometry closed down 8% at $13.87 ahead of the call.
If you missed Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades they were in shares of Autodesk, BofA, BP, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sunoco and many others.
