Bulls usually win over bears in the long-term. Can long-term value win over growth?

Stocks were showing mixed results with major U.S. indexes up and down by only about 0.1% on either side on Wednesday morning. This should be a trading day with much lower trading volume than normal starting later in the morning, even after weaker ISM/PMI data and after the less robust jobs report. This leads up to the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S. with stocks and bonds closed for trading on Thursday and with trading desks expected to be running on skeleton crews on Friday.

Tactical Bulls is continually looking for new ideas and research for long-term investors and short-term traders alike. This hunt is whether more investors and traders are looking or not. Wall Street’s daily flow of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations can be a strong source for some of those new ideas.

Many analyst calls are “tactical bull” calls by nature, but some analyst calls look more permanent as analysts can maintain the same rating for years in many cases. The daily reports are also usually skewed to “stocks to buy” but there are often other analyst calls Showing their “stocks to sell” — or just some stocks to avoid.

Investors should always keep in mind that no analyst call should act as the sole reason to buy or sell a stock. These daily analyst calls and the impact from the calls also help to enforce one of the Tactical Bulls mantras that the so-called Efficient Market Hypothesis is not all that efficient in its assumptions.

Again, the U.S. markets are closed on Thursday for the Fourth of July and Friday may look like a ghost town on Wall Street with skeleton crews running the trading desks. Here are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations for Wednesday, July 3, 2024.

Absci Corporation (NASDAQ: ABSI) was started with an Overweight rating and was assigned a $7 price target at Morgan Stanley, with the firm talking up its use of A.I. and machine learning platform to lower costs and development times and increasing the success of its antibody therapies. Absci shares were up 9% at $3.23 on Wednesday morning and it has only a $366 million market cap. Absci’s 52-week range is $1.11 to $6.72.

AngloGold Ashanti PLC (NYSE: AU) was maintained as Overweight but its target price was cut to $32 from $33 at JPMorgan. AngloGold Ashanti ADSs were trading up over 2% at $26.10 on Wednesday, challenging its 52-week high.

Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) was reiterated as Hold at Deutsche Bank, but the firm raised its target price to $39 from $35 in the call. Corning closed at $38.39 ahead of the call and its 52-weer trading range is $25.26 to $40.46.

Eni S.p.A (NYSE: E) was resumed with an Equal Weight rating in an overseas call at Morgan Stanley. Eni’s ADSs closed at $31.17 ahead of the call, and the Italian energy leader’s shares have a 52-week range of $28.19 to $34.30 in the ADSs.

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) was reiterated as Positive and the price target was raised to $285 from $258 (versus $216.73 prior close) at Susquehanna, First Solar was trading up at $220.00 in early trading on Wednesday.

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Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) was started with an Outperform rating and was assigned a $760 price target (versus $656.22 prior close) at RBC Capital Markets. Intuit’s move to a subscription model and dominating the tax/accounting software leadership were cited.

New York Community Bancorp (NYSE: NYCB) was maintained as Neutral at Citigroup, but the firm raised its price target to $4.00 from $3.50 (versus $3.45 prior close) in the call. While NYCB has had more than a few problems in the last year Citi sees reasons to believe the earnings report will have more positive news and that near-term credit concerns are overdone.

Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) was indicated down another 1% at $75.25 on Wednesday. Deutsche Bank did maintain its Buy rating but lowered its target down to $92 from $115 in the call.

Oceaneering International, Inc. (NYSE: OII) was reiterated as Buy at Citigroup and the firm raised its target to $28 from $25. Oceaneering was up about 1% at $24.00 on Wednesday.

Pacira BioSciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCRX) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight and its price target was slashed down to $25 from $38 at Barclays. The shares were down 2.6% at $22.15 and its 52-week range is $20.52 to $40.16.

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Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) was seen trading higher 3% again ahead of the holiday after its 444,000 deliveries outpaced expectations. Guggenheim kept its negative stance with a Sell rating but it did raise its prior $126 price target up to $134 in the call. JPMorgan also kept its negative stance by reiterating its Underweight rating and $115 price target. Wells Fargo has kept its negative stance despite better deliveries and the firm reiterated its Underweight rating and maintained its $120 price target. With Tesla’s shares up around $240 that’s up from about $195 just last Friday. Canaccord Genuity is one of the positive calls after the firm reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target price to $254 from $222 in that call.

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) continues to face pressure and its shares were down to $11.57 on the last closing bell. UBS joined in the cuts by maintaining a Neutral rating while slashing its target (again) down to $12 from $17. The firm sees no visibility into the stabilization of its core pharmacy business.

If you missed Tuesday’s top analyst calls they were in shares of Costco, CrowdStrike, First Solar, Lennar, PayPal, Walmart and other stocks.