3 Earnings Season Winners That Analysts Can't Stop Upgrading

Key Points

• Elastic, John Deere, and Dynatrace each reported strong earnings and subsequently received a wave of analyst rating upgrades and price target increases.
• Elastic's raised fiscal 2027 revenue and margin guidance prompted a Zacks Research double upgrade and target hikes from 13 firms averaging $108 per share.
• John Deere reached a new all-time high after Baird and Evercore upgraded the stock, citing improved margins and a rebounding agricultural cycle.

Earnings season isn’t just when companies report their quarterly results. It’s also when most stock analysts update their ratings and price targets in response to the new data released from the firms they cover. Ratings like Buy, Sell, or Hold are simple heuristics that stand in for deeper fundamental analysis, and it’s hard to hide poor performance from scrutinizing analysts. They aren’t infallible, and reasonable analysts at top firms often have different outlooks on the same companies. But when analysts begin upping their ratings and price targets in unison, it’s time for investors to pay closer attention.

That’s the theme connecting the three stocks on our list today; all recently reported earnings and received a wave of price target boosts or rating upgrades following their conference calls. If you’re looking for stocks with more upside after a post-earnings pop, you may want to give a closer look at the following three companies.

Elastic: Guidance Well Above Expectations Leads to Target Boost Barrage

Amsterdam-based data analytics firm Elastic NV NYSE: ESTC was an under-the-radar earnings-season winner. Its stock has erased all its 2026 losses, jumping almost 20% following its fiscal Q1 2027 earnings report released on Aug. 27, and it's not hard to see why the market got excited.

Revenue and earnings per share (EPS) both surpassed expectations, with sales growing more than 15% year over year (YOY).

Operating margin also expanded ahead of company projections to 16.2%, and 80 new customers with $100,000 contracts were added in the quarter.

However, it was guidance that drove the stock's immediate move. Fiscal 2027 revenue guidance was boosted to a range of $1.998 billion to $2.01 billion, and operating margin is now projected at 19.2%, implying second-half acceleration from Q1’s 16.2% figure.

Zack’s Research immediately upgraded the stock from Hold to Strong Buy following the report, a rare double upgrade.

Target boosts also came fast and furious: 13 firms raised price estimates on ESTC, including a new Street-high target of $128 from Citigroup. The average of the 13 new price targets is $108, implying more than 25% upside from current levels.

The stock has pulled back since earnings, but all the hallmarks of a long-term uptrend remain in place. A common bullish signal, the Golden Cross, preceded the earnings release as the 50-day moving average moved above the 200-day moving average. A breakout on the MACD confirmed the uptrend, and a bullish cross of the MACD and signal lines now hints that profit-taking will soon subside.

John Deere: Strong Margins and Ag Cycle Rebound Behind Baird Upgrade

John Deere and Company Inc. NYSE: DE reported its results weeks ago, but Baird's upgrade last week renewed its stock rally.

Deere reported its fiscal Q3 2026 results back on Aug. 20, beating EPS estimates by 8.7% and revenue estimates by 16.7%. Operating margin grew to 14.4%, and management boosted fiscal 2026 income guidance to a range of $4.75 billion to $5 billion (previous low end $4.5 billion).

The stock received a series of price target boosts following earnings, but the upgrades didn’t roll in until more than a week later.

On Aug. 31, Baird upgraded the stock from Neutral to Overweight with a new price target of $800. But it also upgraded AGCO Corp. NYSE: AGCO, a competing agricultural machinery manufacturer that missed Q2 2026 earnings expectations back in July.

Baird analyst Mircea Dobre is calling a bottom in the agricultural cycle, not necessarily making a company-specific prediction. Evercore followed on Sept. 2 with an upgrade to Outperform and a new $813 price target, reaffirming the ag outlook.

It may have been a sector-wide call, but the latest upgrade sent DE shares to a new all-time high. The stock has finally retaken its February peak after months of range-bound trading along the 50-moving average, and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has yet to trip an Overbought alarm, so this rally may have more room to run.

Dynatrace: Morgan Stanley Moves to Overweight on Healthy Demand

Dynatrace Inc. NASDAQ: DT reported earnings back on Aug. 5, yet Morgan Stanley waited until Aug. 25 to upgrade the stock from Equalweight to Overweight, boosting its price target from $58 to $65.

Analyst Sanjit Singh cited public cloud growth and enterprise AI deployment as signs of increased demand observability, and the numbers from the report back up this assessment.

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) was up 17% YOY in fiscal Q1 2027, and management boosted the high end of its operating margin guidance to 29.75%.

The rally in DT shares began back in May when the RSI dipped below 30 into Oversold territory. Momentum strengthened as the MACD lines pushed above the histogram, and DT is now trading in a tight uptrending price channel.

The RSI above 70 has typically been the sell signal on this run, with a bullish MACD cross acting as a corresponding buy indicator. Keep these levels in mind as you watch the stock over the next few weeks.

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