U.S. stocks were looking for direction on Tuesday morning after the Dow hit an all-time high and the S&P 500 and tech stocks pulled back on Monday. The market remains excited that Jerome Powell says he is ready to cut interest rates soon, but the financial markets have also been predicting this for a couple of weeks now. Earnings season is mostly over and investors are now looking for new investment and trading ideas.

Tactical Bulls continually hunts for new ideas that traders and long-term investors alike can use in their investing plans. The daily research flow from Wall Street’s analyst upgrades and downgrades can be a source for many of those new ideas.

Investors with a long-term horizon have to keep investing during good markets and bad markets in order to achieve their long-term plans. Short-term traders only care about the ideas which are moving stocks now. These daily analyst calls can be one of the sources to help investors and traders in their decisions to buy, sell or hold.

Tactical Bulls remind its readers (and all investors) that no single analyst report should ever be used as the sole reason to buy or sell a stock. That decision to buy, sell or hold ultimately needs to be made by each investor along with their financial advisor.

These are some of the top analyst upgrades and downgrades seen on Tuesday, August 27, 2024.

Antero Resources Corporation (NYSE: AR) was started with a Buy rating and a $32 price target (versus $27.38 prior clos) at Roth MKM.

AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (NYSE: AVB) was maintained as Hold but its target was raised to $230 from $213 at Truist Securities.

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) was started as Overweight with a $985 price target at Barclays.

CACI International (NYSE: CACI) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised to $535.00 from $450.00 at BofA Securities.

Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley.

Coterra Energy Inc. (NYSE: CTRA) was started as Buy with a $29 price target at Roth MKM.

Energizer (NYSE: ENR) was raised to Buy from Hold and its price target was raised to $40 from $30 at Truist Securities.

EnerSys (NYSE: ENS) was started as Buy with a $120 price target (versus $98.98 prior close) at Roth MKM.

Essential Utilities Inc. (NYSE: WTRG) was reiterated with a Buy rating and with a target price of $55 (versus $39.28 prior close) at Argus. This was also a Tactical Bulls pick for utilities that will thrive more than others as interest rates are cut.

Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE: BEN) was started as Underweight with a $20 price target at Barclays. Franklin Resources was chosen as one of the top financial beneficiaries for when interest rates are lowered.

GitLab Inc. (NASDAQ: GTLB) was started as Outperform with a $59 price target (versus $47.30 prior close) at R.W. Baird. BofA cut its price target to $66 from $80 on GitLab.

The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral and its price target was cut to $182 from $195 (versus $196.41 prior close) at Citigroup.

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Immunic, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMUX) was started as Buy with a $6.00 price target at B. Riley. Immunic closed at $1.45 prior to this call, with a 52-week range of $0.94 to $1.92 and a $130 market cap.

JFrog Ltd. (NASDAQ: FROG) was started as Outperform with a $32 price target (versus $26.60 prior close) at R.W. Baird.

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised to $145 from $140 at Truist Securities. This call is almost immediately ahead of earnings. NVIDIA closed down 2.2% at $126.46 on Monday and its shares were indicated down another 1% at $125.20 on Tuesday morning as investors lock-in gains ahead of September.

PDD Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PDD) fell 28.5% to $100.00 on Monday after earnings didn’t meet Wall Street expectations. PDD was maintained as Outperform and its price target was cut to $170 from $235 at Bernstein.

Rezolute, Inc. (NASDAQ: RZLT) was started as Buy with a $11 price target (versus $4.70 prior close) at Guggenheim.

If you missed Monday’s Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades, they were in shares of Micron, Nucor, Peloton, SentinelOne, Wayfair, Zscaler and other stocks.