3 Stocks Analysts Upgraded Today And The One You Should Avoid

Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE:BIG) is our final stop on this analyst update tour, as Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) initiated coverage of the company with a ‘Buy’ rating and $58 price target on its stock, representing greater than 18% upside potential. Big Lots shrugged off the market selloff in late August, rocketing up by over 15% on August 28 following the release of its second quarter financial results. Among the highlights of that report were earnings and revenue that exceeded analysts’ expectations, at $0.40 per share and $1.21 billion respectively.

A discount retailer operating in the 48 contiguous U.S states, Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE:BIG) was relatively popular among the hedge funds in our database, who owned 10.10% of its common shares on June 30. 24 investors in our database held long positions in the company worth $236 million at that time, which was down slightly from 26 and $250 million respectively on March 31. However, shares declined by over 6% during the second quarter, which accounts for the dip in the value of holdings. Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management was the top shareholder of the company in our database, owning 1.71 million shares, followed by Gotham Asset Management headed by Joel Greenblatt, with 1.49 million shares.

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