Street Wrap: Today’s Top 15 Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations

Merck upgrade, First Solar downgrade, and General Motors initiation among today’s top calls on Wall Street

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:

• Morgan Stanley upgraded WWE (WWE) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $120, up from $105. The analyst sees TKO, the combined WWE and UFC business, as offering an attractive risk/reward given the "secular tailwinds" behind sports and entertainment media rights revenues, live content, and the "defensive characteristics" of largely contracted revenue growth. [read more]
• Citi upgraded Steven Madden (SHOO) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $42, up from $40. The analyst also opened a "positive catalyst watch" on the shares ahead of the company’s Q1 results on April 26. The firm anticipates a "modest" Q1 beat, but more importantly, expects management to talk "more optimistically" about wholesale trends, suggesting upside in Q2 and fiscal 2023. [read more]
• BofA upgraded SunPower (SPWR) to Neutral from Underperform with a price target of $15, up from $14. The analyst sees improved visibility into the company’s 2023 profitability. [read more]
• Scotiabank upgraded Chevron (CVX) to Outperform from Sector Perform with a price target of $200, up from $195. The firm sees the risk/reward for Chevron having improved. [read more]
• Citi analyst Andrew Baum upgraded Merck (MRK) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $130, up from $105. The analyst "materially" increased estimates for Merck to reflect its novel antibody drug conjugates for cancer MK-2870/SKB-264 and cardiology agents sotatercept and MK-0616. [read more]

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Deutsche Bank downgraded First Solar (FSLR) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $230, up from $190. Now is an opportune moment for investors to look for better risk/reward elsewhere in the solar space after First Solar’s stock rally of 45% since early November, the analyst tells investors in a research note. [read more]
• Scotiabank downgraded Exxon Mobil (XOM) to Sector Perform from Outperform with a price target of $135, down from $140. Citing Chevron’s higher oil beta among the super majors, the firm also notes that Exxon shares have further outperformed those of its peer since mid-January after having outperformed Chevron by 27% in 2022 and 9% in 2021. [read more]
• Jefferies downgraded LSB Industries (LXU) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $10, down from $20. The sequential decline in ammonia prices has accelerated, aggravated by delays in pre-planting ammonia applications, and with persistent weakness in natural gas prices in Europe and risks to industrial demand later this year, fly-ups appear unlikely until 2025-2026 at the earliest, the analyst tells investors in a research note. [read more]
• Jefferies downgraded LyondellBasell (LYB) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $90, down from $113. With OPEC’s production cut and U.S. natural gas testing $2 per MMBTU, the U.S. shale advantage thesis has played out, the analyst said. [read more]
• UBS downgraded JD.com (JD) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $43, down from $60. JD lacks exposure to the faster growing segments of e-commerce, argues the firm, which believes JD could undergo a longer adjustment period in order to improve its product selection and user experience for value oriented shoppers to better compete in the long-term with Pinduoduo (PDD), Alibaba (BABA) and Douyin. [read more]

Top 5 Initiations:

• Mizuho initiated coverage of General Motors (GM) with a Neutral rating and $39 price target. While noting that GM has a broad consumer-commercial EV portfolio, the firm notes this is currently only about 2% of the mix and while it sees GM being positioned "well for the next decade of EVs," a transition from a profitable, roughly 98% ICE portfolio to an EV portfolio that currently has a negative 15%-30% gross margin "poses significant challenges." [read more]
• Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage of Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP) with an Overweight rating and $72 price target. The analyst says Crispr "stands out" as an "interesting" gene editing play for 2023. [read more]
• Canaccord initiated coverage of Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA) with a Buy rating and $66 price target. The company’s focus on in-vivo gene editing in large, rare indications was "perhaps not the fastest path to the clinic" relative to its early CRISPR peer companies, but Intellia’s "methodical approach has paid off," the analyst tells investors. [read more]
• Benchmark initiated coverage of Broadcom (AVGO) with a Buy rating and $770 price target. Broadcom became the second largest market cap company in the chip industry following its 2017 acquisition of Brocade and now it remains number two, trailing only Nvidia (NVDA), following years of organic growth and "dozens of successful acquisitions." [read more]
• Baird initiated coverage of Pliant Therapeutics (PLRX) with an Outperform rating and $44 price target. The analyst contends that bexotegrast is a promising agent for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, supported by the 12-week phase 2a data released by Pliant in January 2023. [read more]