Stocks were closed on Wednesday in honor of the Juneteenth holiday. Thursday’s market indications were pointing up for Dow, S&P and NASDAQ futures. 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 daily analyst calls are “strategic bull” calls by 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 keep in mind 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.
As a result of international coverage and with Wednesday being a market holiday, some of these analyst calls may have included calls from the prior day. Here are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations for Thursday, June 20, 2024.
Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BFH) was raised to In-Line from Underperform and its price target was raised to $45 from $42 (versus a $40.84 prior close) at Evercore ISI Group.
Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) was reiterated as Market Perform but the price target was raised to $69 from $66 (versus $60.78 prior close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.
Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) was reiterated with a Buy rating and its price objective was raised to $187 from $160 at BofA Securities.
Enphase Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: ENPH) was maintained as Overweight but the price target was cut to $124 from $128 at JPMorgan. Enphase closed down 1.5% at $119.01 ahead of this call.
Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ESPR0 was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral and its price objective was cut to $2.50 from $2.90 (versus $2.72 prior close) at BofA Securities.
iRhythm Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: IRTC) was raised to Outperform from Peer Perform with a $115 price target (versus $98.16 prior close) at Wolfe Research.
KB Home (NYSE: KBH) was indicated up 1.6% at $69.13 after reporting its earnings and adjusting its 2024 guidance slightly higher. KB Home was reiterated as Outperform and its price target was raised to $86 from $78 at Evercore ISI. KB Home was reiterated as Market Perform and its price target was raised to $77 from $74 at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.
Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN) was reiterated as Outperform but its price target was trimmed down to $237 from $238 (versus $148.72 prior close) at Evercore ISI.
Life360, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIF) was started with a Market Outperform rating and was assigned a $38 price target at JMP Securities. Life360 closed up 2.8% at $31.25 ahead of the call.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) was reiterated as Overweight and its target price was raised to $540 from $475.00 at KeyBanc Capital Markets. Meta Platforms closed down 1.4% at $499.49 on Tuesday and was indicated up 0.8% at $503.51 after the call on Thursday morning.
MKS Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: MKSI) was started as Hold with a $140 price target (versus $137.16 prior close) at Deutsche Bank.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) was already rated as Buy at Rosenblatt, but the firm raised its target price to a street-high $200 from $140 in the call. This is now a $5 trillion call after it just became the largest market capitalization stock in the world.
Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCUL) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $11 from $7 (versus a $5.49 prior close) at TD Cowen.
Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $260 from $200 at CFRA. Qualcomm closed up 2.2% at $227.09 on Tuesday and was indicated up another 0.9% at $229.00 on Thursday after the break in trading on Wednesday.
Ryanair Holdings plc (NASDAQ: RYAAY) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS. Ryaniar’s ADSs were indicated down 3.8% at $113.25 in pre-market trading on Thursday.
Samsara Inc. (NYSE: IOT) was started with a Buy rating and was assigned a $37 price objective at BofA Securities. Samsara closed up 4.7% at $29.61 on Tuesday and its shares were indicated up another 1% at $29.95 on Thursday.
SolarEdge Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: SEDG) was maintained as Overweight but the price target was cut to $59 from $73 at JPMorgan. SolarEdge closed down 3% at $37.07 ahead of the call.
Spirit Aerosystems Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPR) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Benchmark.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (NYSE: TSM) was reiterated as Outperform and its price target was raised to $200 from $150 (versus $179.69 prior close) at Bernstein. Taiwan Semi was indicated up 1.5% at $182.40 after the call on Thursday morni9ng.
TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $92 price objective (versus $71.31 prior close) at BofA Securities.
Vodafone Group PLC (NYSE: VOD) was started with a Buy rating at Deutsche Bank on Wednesday. Vodafone shares were up another 0.3% in London on Thursday after a 1.4% gain on Wednesday.
Another analyst note was much broader covering more caution in China ahead. China Development Bank Securities has reported that China’s GDP growth in the second-quarter of 2024 may dip down to around 5% after the most recent data from May missed most expectations. The report noted that China remains in a very mild recovery and that its overall domestic demand is still quite weak. On top of recent moves to help bolster large-scale equipment and to boost both consumption and production, the firm expects that even more government-led policies need to come to support growth.
In case you missed Tuesday’s top analyst calls, they were in shares of Apple, Juniper, Kroger, Micron, STMicro, Wingstop and more.
