Stocks were indicated lower on Thursday morning ahead of the European Central Bank’s late expected rate cut off the year. This drop was only about 0.1% to 0.2% and is effectively after the major stock indexes have been hitting record highs. Investors are making their plans for 2025 with a new regime, new policies, tariffs, and likely government spending cuts all expected. All major Wall Street strategists have also raised their S&P 500 targets for 2025 in the last three weeks.

Tactical Bulls searches the daily flow of analyst research reports covering the upgrades, downgrades and initiations from Wall Street looking for new ideas that might have otherwise been overlooked or missed. These analyst reports generally try to look out a year out into the future with ratings and target prices.

Some analyst calls are just reactionary to earnings and other news. Other analyst calls are preemptive and can move stocks. Short-term traders get a glimpse of immediate price reactions to news and to the analyst calls. Long-term investors get a picture of new buy, sell and hold ratings with targets looking a year out.

Tactical Bulls always reminds its readers and investors that no single analyst report should ever be the sole basis to buy or sell a stock. That decision to buy or sell, or hold or short sell, is up to each investor and the decision should be made with a financial advisor. And there are of course no assurances that any of the price predictions and the scenarios that back the calls up will actually come to fruition.

These are the top analyst initiations, upgrades and downgrades from brokerage firms and independent research firms on Thursday, December 12, 2024.

Accenture plc (NYSE: ACN) was reiterated as Overweight and its price target raised to $422 from $395 (versus $363.84 close) at Piper Sandler.

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) was reiterated as Overweight and its price target was cut to $600 from $635 at Piper Sandler. Stifel maintained its Buy rating but cut its target to $600 from $650, and Oppenheimer maintained its Outperform but cut its target to $600 from $625. Adobe closed at $549.93 but was indicated down over 11% at $488.00 after earnings and guidance signal a delay to AI helping its sales.

Albertsons Companies Inc. (NASDAQ: ACI) was maintained as Market Perform and its price target was cut to $21 from $27.25 at Telsey Advisory Group.

Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) was initiated as Outperform with a $380 price target at Macquarie. Autodesk closed up 1.1% at $307.46 on Wednesday but was indicted down 0.7% at $305.00 on Thursday morning.

Bloom Energy Corp. (NYSE: BE) was reiterated as Outperform and its price target was raised to $32 from $15 (versus $23.60 close) at Baird.

Box, Inc. (NYSE: BOX) was initiated as Buy and was assigned a $40 price objective (versus $32.27 close) at BofA Securities.

Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P. (NYSE: BEP) was raised to Overweight from Neutral with a $30 price target (versus $24.08 close) at JP Morgan.

CACI International Inc. (NSE: CACI) was cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Celsius Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CELH) was initiated as Overweight with a $37 price target at JPMorgan. Celsius was initiated as Hold at Deutsche Bank.

CleanSpark, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSK) was named as the Bear of the Day at Zacks. noting that analysts have adjusted earnings lower and are now calling for negative EPS for the bitcoin mining related shares.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $70 from $68 at Deutsche Bank, noting 2025 will be a strong year for non-alcoholic beverages.

Comcast Corp. (NADAQ: CMCSA) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $46 price target (versus $39.71 close) at Seaport Global.

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Commercial Metals Company (NYSE: CMC) was downgraded to Sell from Buy with a price target cut to $56 from $62 (versus $61.60 close) at UBS.

Constellation Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: CEG) was raised to Buy from Neutral and its price target was raised to $269 from $237 (versus $236.60 close) at BofA Securities, with the firm calling it undervalued in light of industry changes driving energy demand.

Couchbase, Inc. (NASDAQ: BASE) was initiated as Buy with a $21 target price (versus $16.07 close) at Truist Securities.

Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ: DDOG) was initiated as Outperform with a $200 target price (versus $156.48 close) at Macquarie.

Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) was raised to Overweight from Equal-Weight with its price target raised to $320 from $275 at Morgan Stanley. Equifax was downgraded to Peer Perform from Outperform at Wolfe Research. Equifax closed at $262.74 ahead of the calls.

General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Informatica Inc. (NASDAQ: INFA) was initiated with a Buy rating and with $34 target price (versus $26.70 close) at Truist Securities.

Kenvue Inc. (NYSE: KVUE) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Keurig Dr. Pepper (NYSE: KDP) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $39 from $37 at Deutsche Bank, also noting that 2025 will be a strong year for non-alcoholic beverages.

Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDLZ) was cut to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.

New Jersey Resources (NYSE: NJR) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.

Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) was maintained as Buy and had its price target cut to $156 from $171 (versus $138.44 close) at UBS.

Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE: NTR) was initiated as Outperform with a $60 price target (versus $47.88 close) at Oppenheimer.

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Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA) was named the Bull of the Day at Zacks, noting that its results are delivering rising estimates and price targets for the premier identity security provider.

Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PLTR) was initiated as Neutral with a $70 target price (versus $72.51 close) at Baird. Palantir was indicated down 0.4% at $72.25 on Thursday morning.

Patterson Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ: PDCO) closed up over 35% at $31.40 after it was being taken private in a private equity buyout. Patterson Companies was maintained as Neutral but its price target raised to $31 from $25 at Baird. Leerink downgraded Patterson to Market Perform but raised its target to $31.35 from $29 in its call.

PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $184 from $179 (versus $156.77 close) at Deutsche Bank, also noting 2025 will be a strong year for non-alcoholic beverages.

Roblox Corporation (NYSE: RBLX) was initiated as a Buy with a $63 target price (versus $59.89 close) at HSBC.

Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ: STLD) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and its price target was raised to $149 from $145 (versus $133.55 close) at UBS.

V2X, Inc. (NUSE: VVX) was initiated with a Sell rating and was assigned a $54 price target (versus $59.32 close) at Goldman Sachs.

Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE: VRT) was initiated as Equal-Weight with a $142 price target (versus $125.84 close) at Barclays.

WEC Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE: WEC) was raised to Neutral from Underperform at BofA Securities.

If you missed Wednesday’s top analyst calls, they were in shares of Tesla, C3.ai, KBHome, Illumina, Lattice, MoneyLion, Reddit, Sirius XM and more stocks.