Rivian downgraded, Instacart upgraded: Wall Street’s top analyst calls

The most talked about and market moving research calls around Wall Street are now in one place. Here are today’s research calls that investors need to know, as compiled by The Fly.

Top 5 Upgrades:

• Wolfe Research upgraded Instacart (CART) to Outperform from Peer Perform with a $35 price target. The risk/reward is attractive at current levels and Wolfe sees several paths for shares to Outperform, including a potential merger with Uber (UBER).
• Piper Sandler upgraded Burlington Stores (BURL) to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $240, up from $155. The firm is increasingly confident in the company’s 30-0-plus basis point margin expansion opportunity and believes that its market share gains are likely to continue.
• Piper Sandler upgraded Revolve Group (RVLV) to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $21, up from $16. The firm believes more controlled inventory and likely improvements in return rates will help drive gross margin expansion.
• UBS upgraded Visteon (VC) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $145, up from $143. The company’s lower growth is more than priced into the shares, while its 2024 guidance “could be a clearing event,” the firm tells investors in a research note.
• JPMorgan upgraded Futu Holdings (FUTU) to Overweight from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $64. The shares have fallen by 25% in the past two months due to a moderate miss in Q3 results and downside risk on net interest income, but JPMorgan thinks the concerns are overdone.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Deutsche Bank downgraded Rivian Automotive (RIVN) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $19, down from $29. The firm sees downside to the company’s 2024 volume and margin outlook.
• WestPark Capital downgraded Crowdstrike (CRWD) to Hold from Buy as the firm believes the company needs higher growth to support the current valuation.
• Susquehanna downgraded Spirit Airlines (SAVE) to Negative from Neutral with a price target of $5, down from $15. The firm sees “little likelihood” of JetBlue (JBLU) reworking the companies’ deal after a U.S. district court judge ruled to block the proposed merger.
• Barclays downgraded SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $50, down from $74. Consensus estimates will need to come down for both SolarEdge and Enphase Energy (ENPH), but the magnitude is larger for SolarEdge, the firm tells investors in a research note.
• UBS downgraded Ford (F) to Neutral from Buy with an unchanged price target of $12. The firm believes the stock is more fairly valued at current levels, and sees more limited upside to estimates over 2024 and 2025 than prior years.

Top 5 Initiations:

• Evercore ISI initiated coverage of AutoNation (AN) with an Outperform rating and $185 price target. AutoNation is one of the largest automotive retailers in the United States, notes the analyst, who thinks solid earnings should continue with 5%-plus organic EPS growth.
• KeyBanc initiated coverage of Zscaler (ZS) with a Sector Weight rating and no price target. The firm believes that at the current valuation premium to the security group, the shares are fairly valued given an increasingly competitive market and the company’s uneven success to date expanding into adjacencies.
• KeyBanc initiated coverage of TransDigm (TDG) with an Overweight rating and $1,180 price target. The firm views TransDigm as well-positioned to capitalize on the favorable environment given its exposure to the multi-year up-cycle, particularly within aftermarket.
• KeyBanc initiated coverage of Spirit AeroSystems (SPR) with a Sector Weight rating and no price target. The firm believes the company’s recent challenges, including quality issues, revised union contract, unfavorable manufacturer contracts, will weigh on free cash flow expectations in the near to mid-term.
• KeyBanc initiated coverage of Rocket Lab (RKLB) with an Overweight rating and $8 price target. The firm calls Rocket Lab “one of the handful of companies within the Space industry with a proven business model and viable path to profitability” in the next one to three years.