Stocks were indicated marginally higher on Friday, but the direction of the day seems far from set in stone. The trend of endlessly buying the dips has not worked as well as it has in prior years. Now is a time when all investors should be considering how they want their investments positioned for the longer term.
24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week. Our goal is to find new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some analyst reports cover stocks to buy and some cover stocks to sell or to avoid.
Additional color and commentary have been added on most of the daily analyst reports. The consensus analyst price targets mentioned and other valuation metrics are from the Thomson Reuters sell-side research service.
These were the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and other research calls from Friday, May 18, 2018.
Adverum Biotechnologies Inc. (NASDAQ: ADVM) was started as Overweight and assigned a $60 price target at Piper Jaffray. This is only a $373 million market cap stock, but it still represents right at 100% in implied upside from the $6.00 prior close (after a 2.4% drop), and the analyst’s target compares with a consensus target price of $10.00.
Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: AIMT) was started as Overweight and assigned a $60 price target at Piper Jaffray. That call actually represents almost 100% upside from the $30.01 close, compared to a consensus target price of $60. Aimmune has been volatile over the past year, as its 52-week trading range is $15.97 to $42.00.
Alpine Immune Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: ALPN) was started as Outperform with a $13 target price (versus an $8.12 close) at Wedbush Securities. Alpine is seen as leveraging a directed evolution approach to create multi-functional protein-based therapeutics that it believes could potentially modulate the immune synapse more effectively than conventional immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) was started as Hold at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
Bemis Co. (NYSE: BMS) was started as Hold at Jefferies.
Berry Global Group Inc. (NYSE: BERY) was started as Buy and assigned a $67 price target (versus a $47.53 close) at Jefferies. The consensus target is $67.85, and the 52-week range is $47.30 to $61.71.
Brixmor Property Group Inc. (NYSE: BRX) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $17.50 price target (versus a $14.26 close) at Goldman Sachs. The 52-week range is $13.74 to $20.59, and the consensus target price is $18.20.
Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. (NASDAQ: CRZO) was downgraded to Hold from Buy with a $26 price target (versus a $27.33 close, after a 5% gain) at Jefferies. Carrizo has a 52-week range of $11.10 to $128.05 and a consensus target price of $26.18.
Coupa Software Inc. (NASDAQ: COUP) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight with a $51 price target (versus a $51.48 close) at Barclays.
Companhia de Saneamento Basico (NYSE: SBS), or Sabesp, for water and waste management in Sao Paolo (Brazil), was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs.
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