Analyst Upgrades: McDonald's Corporation, Republic Airways Holdings Inc., and Allergan PLC

Analysts are weighing in on burger mastermind McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD), airliner Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET), and biotech Allergan PLC (NYSE:AGN). Here's a quick roundup of today's bullish brokerage notes on MCD, RJET, and AGN.

• MCD is getting a 1.2% pre-market lift from an upgrade to "outperform" from "neutral" at Credit Suisse, which also raised its price target to $112 from $100. The brokerage firm cited the growing sales resulting from the menu changes the company has made this year. Heading into today's session, the shares were sitting 2.4% above breakeven in 2015, and could move even higher if bearish options traders head for the exits. That is, McDonald's Corporation sports a 10-day International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) put/call volume ratio of 2.08, which is only 1 percentage point from an annual bearish peak. MCD settled at $95.96 on Monday. 


• Following the company's tentative agreement with the pilots union, RJET received some bullish attention from the Street, which has the shares 14.9% higher in electronic trading. Specifically, Deutsche Bank raised its outlook to "buy" from "hold," and bumped its price target to $8 from $5 -- territory not seen since the stock's late-July bear gap. Additionally, Cowen and Company boosted its outlook to "market perform" from "underperform," and its price target to $6 from $1. Overall, Republic Airways Holdings Inc. has lost half its value in the past 12 months amid its ongoing fundamental woes, so it's not surprising that short interest more than doubled during the two most recent reporting periods. What's more, there's a clear put-bias among short-term options traders, as RJET's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) stands at 1.52 -- higher than 98% of readings from the past year. 


• Despite the recent turmoil in the biotech sector, AGN is slightly higher in ahead of the bell, after the company's stronger-than-expected third-quarter sales forecast was met with a "buy" initiation at Nomura. However, the stock was also hit by no fewer than three price-target reductions, though even the lowest -- a $289 price target at Raymond James -- represents expected upside from Monday's close at $254.87. Looking at the charts, Allergan PLC hit an all-time high of $340.34 on July 29, but has since trailed off amid consistent pressure from its 20-day moving average.