Rivian upgraded, SolarEdge downgraded: 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:

• Evercore ISI upgraded Rivian Automotive (RIVN) to Outperform from In Line with a price target of $35, up from $30. The firm, which sees the R1 plus R2 setting up Rivian’s “round 2,” would be buyers at current levels and expects “solid” production and deliveries to be reported for Q3.
• Goldman Sachs added Nvidia (NVDA) to the firm’s Conviction List, while keeping a Buy rating on the shares with a $605 price target. The firm expects the company to maintain its status as the accelerated computing industry standard for the foreseeable future given its competitive moat and the urgency with which customers are developing and deploying increasingly complex artificial intelligence models.
• Susquehanna upgraded FedEx (FDX) to Positive from Neutral with a price target of $315, up from $225. The firm views the long-term upside opportunity in FedEx from cost rationalization and a valuation re-rating as greater than the near-term cyclical risk.
• DA Davidson upgraded Clorox (CLX) to Buy from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $152. Shares are down 18% since the company disclosed a “crippling cyberattack” on August 14, but on Friday they said all manufacturing sites are now operating. The firm believes that when Clorox quantifies the financial impacts, uncertainty will be reduced and shares could rally and that sentiment should improve from here.
• Jefferies upgraded Insulet (PODD) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $240, down from $260. Given the underperformance in the shares on GLP-1 fears, the firm is “opportunistically upgrading” Insulet.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Barclays downgraded SolarEdge (SEDG) to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $152, down from $274. The firm expects challenges to persist beyond the near-term destocking issue due to “inevitable” selling price reductions, market share losses, and an currency rates that are currently trending unfavorably.
• Mizuho downgraded Toast (TOST) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $16, down from $30. The firm sees the company’s gross payment volume per location slowing faster than restaurant inflation, which could signal “muted success” in enterprise.
• JPMorgan downgraded Chubb (CB) to Neutral from Overweight with an unchanged price target of $250. The firm has a less constructive view on the broader commercial lines market and says the stock’s valuation is not as compelling as it was at the time of the firm’s upgrade in March.
• Wells Fargo downgraded NextEra Energy Partners (NEP) to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $33, down from $80. NextEra Energy’s (NEE) decision to not proceed with an asset drop down and cut NextEra Energy Partners’ growth goal “created a crisis in confidence in NEP that will be difficult to restore,” the firm says.
• BofA downgraded Norfolk Southern (NSC) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $215, down from $266. The firm moved its target multiple closer to the midpoint of its range given continued service challenges.

Top 5 Initiations:

• Wedbush initiated coverage of Etsy (ETSY) with a Neutral rating and $70 price target. The firm believes the company’s long-term value is overshadowed by its near-term headwinds.
• William Blair resumed coverage of Carnival (CCL) with an Outperform rating. Carnival inflected into profitability for the first time since the start of the pandemic and achieved record revenue in its fiscal Q3, with adjusted earnings beating guidance and consensus as North America and Europe equally beat management’s expectations, the firm says.
• UBS initiated coverage of Atlassian (TEAM) with a Neutral rating and $225 price target. With the stock up 53% year-to-date and the valuation multiples “looking full” for a company that is very reliant on price increases and migrations to cloud/premium editions to drive growth, investors can wait for a better entry point, the firm argues.
• UBS initiated coverage of Datadog (DDOG) with a Neutral rating and $100 price target. The firm is “insufficiently confident” that Datadog’s “severe” revenue growth deceleration is simply due to cyclical spend optimization headwinds.
• Jefferies initiated coverage of WK Kellogg (KLG) with a Hold rating and $15 price target. With a flat sales outlook in a declining ready-to-eat cereal category, elevated upfront capex needs and a disadvantaged margin profile, WK Kellogg will likely trade at a discounted multiple relative to peers, the firm tells investors in a research note.