Stocks were looking weak again on Friday on continued selling pressure ahead of key inflation data. Thursday barely managed to stop the 10-day consecutive sell-off in the Dow, barely, but the NASDAQ and S&P 500 both closed down. You had been warned by Tactical Bulls that the Fed’s rate target campaign was already looking muted in 2025. Now investors need to be planning for 2025 with a new regime, new policies, tariffs and likely government spending cuts all in the mix.

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 ahead of key events and developments 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.

Wall Street strategists have also raised their S&P 500 targets for 2025 in the last three weeks. These are the top analyst initiations, upgrades and downgrades from brokerage firms and independent research firms on Friday, December 20, 2024.

AMC Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: AMCX) was named as the Bear of the Day at Zacks, noting that consensus trends for earnings estimates have been showing a clear negative tilt. AMC Networks closed down 0.8% at $9.25 ahead of the call.

Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNA) was initiated as Buy with a $72 price target (versus $31.05 close) at HC Wainwright.

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB) was reiterated as Neutral but its price target was raised to $3.50 from $3.00 at Baird. TD Cowen raised its rating to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $4 from $3.25 in the call.

Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE: EAT) was raised to Equal-Weight from Underweight and its price target was raised to $115 from $70 (versus $131.33 prior close) at Morgan Stanley.

CarMax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) was reiterated with a Buy rating and its price target was raised to $98 from $90 (versus $84.23 close) at Needham. Carmax was also reiterated as Neutral with a price target hike to $80 from $72 at Mizuho.

ALSO READ: 7 BLUE CHIPS WITH HUGE UPSIDE LIKELY IN 2025

Celestica, Inc. (NYSE: CLS) was named the Bull of the Day at Zacks, noting that the leading electronics manufacturer has seen its stock surge more than 200% this year and still has upside left. Celestica closed up 1% at $93.05 on Thursday.

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE: DRI) was reiterated as Outperform and its price target was raised to $220 from $200 at Wedbush. Baird reiterated its Neutral rating but raised its price target to $194 from $180. Darden was also maintained as Equal-Weight and its price target was raised to $175 from $164 at Stephens. Darden closed up 14.7% at $183.44 on Thursday.

Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ: DLTR) was maintained at Market Perform with a $75 price target at Telsey Advisory Group.

Evercore Inc. (NYSE: EVR) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform and its price target was raised to $339 from $269 (versus $270.57 close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXEL) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets.

Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE: FRT) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and its price target was raised to $125 from $122 (versus $109.55 close) at JPMorgan.

FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $365 from $288 (versus $275.88 close) at Loop Capital. Morgan Stanley maintained its Underweight rating and $200 price target. Barclays maintained its Buy rating but cut its target to $305 from $310. FedEx was up almost 7% at $295.00 after earnings and plans to spin off its freight division.

Healthcare Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: HR) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight with a $19 target price (versus $16.70 close) at JPMorgan.

Kimco Realty Corporation (NYSE: KIM) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight with a $26 target price (versus $23.01 close) at JPMorgan.

Lazard , Inc. (NYSE: LAZ) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform and its price target was cut to $57 from $65 (versus $50.49 close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform and its price target was cut to $105 from $136 (versus $99.52 close) at BMO Capital Markets.

Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) closed up 0.2% at $77.10 ahead of earnings, then originally popped as much as 8% or 9% before the earnings conference call for its earnings. And on Friday during the sell-off its shares were down 6% to $72.50 (just above the 52-week low of $70.75). BofA Securities maintained its Buy rating but cut its price objective to $90 from $95. Deutsche Bank reiterated its Buy rating and bumped its price target up to $84 from $82. Nike was maintained as Buy with a $84 price target at Needham. Nike was cut to Market Perform from Outperform and its price target was cut to $80 from $93 at Telsey Advisory Group. Morgan Stanley maintained its Equal-Weight rating but cut its price target down to 74 from $80.

ALSO READ: 4 INTERNET STOCKS POISED TO SURGE IN 2025

Personalis, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSNL) was reiterated with a Buy rating and its price target was raised to $11 from $9 at HC Wainwright. Personalis closed up 47% at $5.26 on Thursday after its pacts with Merck and Moderna were announced.

Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: RYTM) was initiated with an Outperform rating and it was given a $76 price target (versus $55.48 close) at Oppenheimer.

RxSight, Inc. (NASDAQ: RXST) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and its price target was slashed down to $40 from $65 (versus $38.19 close) at Stifel.

Spero Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRO) was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Evercore ISI Group.

Tradeweb Markets Inc. (NASDAQ: TW) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform and TW’s price target was raised to $150 from $143 (versus $130.33 prior close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Valvoline Inc. (NYSE: VVV) was started with a Hold rating at Stifel.

Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCVX) was started with a Buy rating and was assigned a $135 price target (versus $86.21 close) at Goldman Sachs.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) closed down 11.3% at $396.64 on Thursday after bad news about its non-opioid pain drug showed mixed study results. Vertex was maintained at Buy but its price target was cut to $535 from $600 at HC Wainwright.

In case you missed Thursday’s top analyst calls, they were in shares of C3.ai, CVS, HIVE, IonQ, Micron, Okta, RTX, Zoom and many more stocks.