The biggest ASX broker upgrades, downgrades and price target changes for the second half of reporting season

Welcome to this week's ASX Broker Moves – your most comprehensive source for recent changes in major broker ratings and target prices for the Australian stock market.

Today is a bumper "Second Half of August Reporting Season Edition"! 🧐

The tables below contain data on ratings upgrades, downgrades, and initiations, as well as the biggest target price changes among the broker research reports we’ve received since the 15 August. In each section, you'll also find valuable insights into the data to help you make the best possible decisions for your portfolio.

You will find a full list of daily broker moves in our Evening Wrap.

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RATING = UPGRADED ✅

Broker rating upgrades since last update. Target Price Upside/Downside (“TP Upside%”) values in the last column are based on closing prices on most recent session's close.

Rating Upgrades Insights 🧐

If you think that's a lot of upgrades, well it is, but wait until you scroll a little lower and see how many downgrades there were! For the most part, the table above contains stocks that suprised the big brokers in a good way.

There are there are some exceptions, though, like Guzman y Gomez (GYG), that delivered acutely disappointing results (judging by the plunge in GYG's stock price post-results), but which some brokers subsequently believed deserved a rating upgrade on valuation grounds (i.e., it appeared less overvalued after the heavy loss).

See below a frequency table to help summarise the deluge of information above. Generally, the most upgraded stocks earned their new ratings by delivering strong results and positive earnings suprises.

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RATING = DOWNGRADED ❌

Broker rating downgrades since last update. Target Price Upside/Downside (“TP Upside%”) values in the last column are based on closing prices on most recent session's close.

Rating Downgrades Insights 🧐

So... many... downgrades!!! 179 to be precise 🤯. I thought about whether I'd show them all, knowing it would be one very long scroll down... and down... but there they are. Surely, this means that the big brokers were more often disappointed than they were pleased – but it could also mean that their expectations were out of whack!

To be fair, some of the stocks in the above table didn't do anything wrong, on the contrary, if we look at the likes of Eagers Automotive (APE), Codan (CDA), Brambles (BXB), and Lovisa (LOV) – their results were very well received and triggered in huge share price gains. It's that last bit that a few of the brokers usually took umbrage with, that is, the increase in the stock's price had diminished the value the broker perceived still remained.

Generally, you can tell a "good downgrade" from a "bad downgrade" by checking what the broker did with their target price. The "good downgrades" were generally accompanied by target price increases, representing higher perceived valuations for those stocks.

You'll find detailed data and analysis on price target increases (and decreases) below, but for now, here's a useful frequency table below to help make sense of the very, very long table above! 4 mining stocks at the top of the list... hmmm... is that cyclical low in place!? 🤔

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RATING = INITIATED 🌟

Broker rating initiations since last update. Target Price Upside/Downside (“TP Upside%”) values in the last column are based on closing prices on most recent session's close.

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TARGET PRICE INCREASES > +50% 🚀

Biggest broker target price changes since last update. Target Price Upside/Downside (“TP Upside%”) values in the last column are based on closing prices as on most recent session's close.

Target Price Increases Insights 🧐

There were several hundred target prices increased in the second half of August 2025 reporting season, and so it would be silly to list them all! So, find in the table above only those target price increases of 50% or greater (yes, even using this high benchmark there are still plenty!).

Personally, I think it's a far more valuable to look at which stocks garnered the greatest number of target price increases, and if this also corresponds to the greatest size of target price increase. That's why I constructed the table below. These were the stocks most favoured by the big brokers in the back half of August 2025 reporting season ✅.

Note, again, as there were so many target price changes, I have limited the search to only those stocks that received an increase of greater than +5%, or as per the decreases table later below, a decrease of less than -5%.

I think it's clear from the table below, and the corresponding table for decreases at the end of this article, which ASX stocks appear to be hitting their performance goals and therefore beating market expectations (👍) and which are doing the exact opposite (👎)!

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TARGET PRICE DECREASES > -25% 🪓

Biggest broker target price changes since last update. Target Price Upside/Downside (“TP Upside%”) values in the last column are based on closing prices as on most recent session's close.

Target Price Decreases Insights 🧐

Ratings go up and down based on perceived value, but target prices are one of two critical inputs in determining what that value is (the other being the stock price). Put simply, brokers don't cut their target prices if a stock is shooting the lights out.

It follows, if you own a stock that has found itself in the target price decreases list above, or worse – at the top of the target price decrease frequency table above – then you might want to rethink your portfolio management acumen!

Note in the table above, only those target price increases of 25% or greater are shown (otherwise the table would have been too long), and in the table below, only target price decreases < -5% are considered for frequency tabluation.

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How to read broker recommendations 🔎

Typically, there are two major components of a broker’s view:

Rating: A call to action, usually along the lines of buy, hold, or sell, but depending on the broker’s ratings system, can be somewhere in between (e.g., accumulate or add is typically between a hold and a buy).

Target Price (TP): The price at which the broker expects the stock will be trading at some point in the future, generally within the next 12 months.