Stocks were indicated marginally higher again on Wednesday ahead of corporate earnings season kicking off this week. Oggonomics is continually looking for new ideas and research for long-term investors and short-term traders alike. The search for new ideas is happening even when markets are challenging all-time highs, and whether investors and traders are looking for new ideas 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 daily analyst reports are strategic bull calls by nature. Some of the daily analyst calls will seem more permanent as analysts can maintain the same rating for years. While the reports often feature “stocks to buy” there also some 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 Wednesday, July 10, 2024.
Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: A) was raised to Buy from Neutral and its price target was raised to $150 from $135 (versus $125.42 prior close) at Citigroup.
Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) was maintained as Overweight but its price target was cut to $151 from $159 (versus $90.47 close), after an 8.75% drop) at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was reiterated as Buy and its target price was raised to $260 from $220 (versus $228.68 (prior closer) at Needham.
Arcadium Lithium plc (NYSE: ALTM) was maintained as Overweight but its price target was lowered down to $9 from $11 (versus $3.27 prior close, after a 3.5% drop) at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
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Carvana Co. (NYSE: CVNA) was Raised to Buy from Hold with a $160 price target at Needham. Carvana closed at $125.70 ahead of the call.
LegalZoom.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: LZ) was downgraded to Market Perform from Market Outperform at JMP Securities, and BofA double-downgraded Legalzoom to Underperform from Buy. This stock was down almost 30% on Wednesday morning after a leadership transition release was announced showing that Chief Executive Officer Dan Wernikoff is departing as CEO and is resigning from the Board.
Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (NASDAQ: LEXX) was started as Buy with a $10 price target (versus $2.58 prior close) at H.C. Wainwright. Lexaria had a $37 million market cap and its 52-week range is $0.72 to $6.85.
Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA) was downgraded to Neutral and its target was cut to $480 from $505 (versus $444.70 close) at BofA Securities.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) was reiterated as Buy and its target price was raised to $600 from $530 (versus $530.00 prior close) at TD Cowen.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $735 rom $707 (versus $685.74 prior close) at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Mineralys Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MLYS) was started as Buy and was assigned a $30 price target at H.C. Wainwright. The stock closed up 2.7% at $12.89 ahead of the call and its 52-week range is $5.85 to $16.91.
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Paymentus Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PAY) was raised to Outperform from Neutral with a $23 price target (versus $18.48 prior close) at Robert W. Baird.
SMART Global Holdings (NASDAQ: SGH) was reiterated as Buy and its target as raised to $30 from $27 at Needham.
Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE: SPOT) was downgraded to Sell from an already cautious Neutral rating with a $230 price target at Redburn Atlantic. Spotify closed down 0.7% at $311.55 ahead of the call and its shares were down about 1.8% at $306.00 in early trading on Wednesday.
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) was reiterated as Neutral at Goldman Sachs, but Tesla’s price target was raised to $248 from $175 in the call. Tesla closed up 3.7% at $262.33 ahead of the call and the stock was indicated up marginally at $263.00 on Wednesday morning.
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and its price objective was lowered to $297 from $305 at BofA Securities. Visa closed down over 0.3% at $265.44 ahead of the call and was indicated down another 1.3% at $261.00 on Wednesday.
If you missed Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades, they were in shares of AMD, Apple, BofA, Chewy, Micron, Netflix, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, RH, Tempus AI and many more stocks.
