Market Direction and Stock Trends

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Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades: Alibaba, Baidu, Bristol-Myers, Cimarex, Deere, Deutsche Bank, Micron, NeoPhotonics, Target, United Continental and More
By: 24/7 Wall St. | May 20, 2019

Stocks were down another 0.6% or so in Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 futures on Monday morning as further realizations and expectations normalize into a belief that the trade war with China will not end quickly. Investors have now seen multiple reasons that might amplify their belief that “sell in May and go away” might be a better strategy, particularly as the major market indexes are still quite close to all-time highs. Now investors need to be considering how to position their portfolios for the rest of 2019.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week in an effort to find new trading and investing ideas for our readers. Some of these daily analyst reports cover stocks to buy, but others cover stocks to sell or to avoid.

Additional commentary and trading data have been added on some of the daily analyst reports. The consensus analyst price targets and other valuation metrics are from the Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) sell-side research service.

These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Monday, May 20, 2019.

AGCO Corp. (NYSE: AGCO) was downgraded to Underperform from an already cautious Neutral rating at Merrill Lynch.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) was reiterated as Overweight and the target price was raised to $225 from $220 at Barclays.

American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AAL) was reiterated as Overweight but the price target was lowered to $48 from $60 at Barclays. American Airlines Group was also downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) was maintained as Equal Weight but the target price was lowered to $160 from $200 at Barclays.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus.

CarGurus Inc. (NASDAQ: CARG) was started as Market Perform at Cowen.

Cimarex Energy Co. (NYSE: XEC) was raised to Buy from Hold at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) was maintained as Overweight but the price target was lowered to $170 from $180 at Barclays. Also, RBC Capital Markets maintained it as Outperform and lowered the price target to $175 from $190.

Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Deutsche Bank A.G. (NYSE: DB) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS in an overseas research call citing ongoing risks for the German bank. Deutsche Bank’s ADSs closed down 1% at $7.58 on Friday and they were indicated down another 2.2% at $7.41 on Monday morning.

General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $204 price target at Goldman Sachs.

Globant S.A. (NYSE: GLOB) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $100 from $90 (versus an $84.04 close) at Wedbush Securities. The firm believes that Globant’s management is successfully addressing its exposure to Argentina (largest risk to profitability) and that the company has multiple positive catalysts and developments ahead.

Goodrich Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: GDP) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $15.50 target price (versus $12.40 close, after a 3.5% drop) at B. Riley FBR. The consensus target price is $19.45, and its 52-week trading range is $11.60 to $15.50.

Jack in the Box Inc. (NASDAQ: JACK) was raised to Buy from Hold and the target price was raised to $95 from $85 (versus an $82.17 close, after a 4.2% gain) at Stifel.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) was maintained as Buy but the price target was lowered to $45 from $48 at Deutsche Bank.

NeoPhotonics Corp. (NASDAQ: NPTN) was down another 15% at $3.84 on Friday after the prior day’s post-Huawei exposure crushed the stock. NeoPhotonics was raised to Buy from Neutral but the target price Target was lowered to $5.50 from $7.25 at B. Riley FBR.

Plymouth Industrial REIT Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: PLYM) was reiterated as Outperform and the price target was raised to $20 from $18 (versus a $17.18 close) at Wedbush. The increased price target is after an equity offering, noting that the company will be able to leverage the issued capital into $115 million to $125 million of new properties over the next six months to nine months.

Prologis Inc. (NYSE: PLD) was downgraded to In Line from Outperform at Evercore ISI. Prologis closed down 0.3% at $76.61 on Friday and was indicated down another 0.3% at $76.35 on Monday. Its consensus target price was $78.19.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) was raised to Equal Weight from Underweight with a $67 target price at Morgan Stanley.

United Continental Holdings Inc. (NYSE: UAL) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight and the target price was raised to $110 from $101 at Morgan Stanley.

Zoom Video Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) was started with an Outperform rating at William Blair.

Friday’s top analyst calls included Apple, Applied Materials, Camping World, CarMax, Ensco Rowan, Foot Locker, Under Armour, Wayfair, Walmart and many more companies.

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