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

Exact Sciences upgrade, PayPal downgrade, and JFrog 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: 

• Craig-Hallum upgraded Exact Sciences (EXAS) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $85, up from $55. The firm notes that it had downgraded Exact Sciences in front of Guardant Health’s (GH) Shield ECLIPSE study results as it thought the data would reveal blood’s potential in colon cancer screening and would alter the view of Cologuard near-term/cap the stock. This proved to be wrong, Craig-Hallum acknowledges. [Read more]
• BofA double upgraded InterDigital (IDCC) to Buy from Underperform with a price target of $105, up from $55, following the company’s "impressive" Q1 results. [Read more]
• Scotiabank upgraded Albemarle (ALB) to Outperform from Sector Perform with a price target of $250, down from $315. Most or all of the "material bear-clearing events" are complete, with steep cuts to guidance behind the company, the firm says. [Read more]
• BofA upgraded Celsius Holdings (CELH) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $125, up from $98, noting that scanner data have shown accelerating month-over-month growth since February. [Read more]
• Baird upgraded Alcon (ALC) to Outperform from Neutral with a price target of $90, up from $75, following the Q1 report. The firm is "incrementally encouraged" by both the Q1 company-wide margin upside despite implantables mix headwinds and a solid acceleration in year-over-year contact lens growth. [Read more]

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Edward Jones downgraded PayPal (PYPL) to Hold from Buy and removed it from the firm’s "Stock Focus List" following weaker quarterly results. [Read more]
• KeyBanc downgraded Twilio (TWLO) to Sector Weight from Overweight post the company’s relatively strong Q1 result and poor guide for Q2 indicating a possible meaningful deceleration in both Twilio’s Communication segment and the nascent Data & Applications group. [Read more]
• TD Cowen downgraded Nikola (NKLA) to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $1, down from $5. While the firm likes the company’s strategic focus and views its FCEV as "a differentiated product," it sees Nikola having limited ability to raise capital given they can only issue 60M shares before hitting their outstanding cap. [Read more]
• Barclays downgraded Lumentum (LITE) to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $40, down from $55. Expectations were already low after the company’s pre-announcement in early April, but the outlook into the rest of the year was reset further with headwinds "across the board," the firm says. [Read more]
• Alliance Global Partners downgraded Aterian (ATER) to Neutral from Buy and removed the firm’s prior price target, telling investors the the company’s Q1 results reflect challenging market conditions. [Read more]

Top 5 Initiations:

• DA Davidson initiated coverage of JFrog (FROG) with a Buy rating and $25 price target. The firm’s checks indicate Generative AI provides potential tailwinds for JFrog. [Read more]
• DA Davidson initiated coverage of GitLab (GTLB) with a Neutral rating and $30 price target. Given recent demand trends, the firm is starting on the sidelines. [Read more]
• Wells Fargo initiated coverage of Braze (BRZE) with an Overweight rating and $34 price target. While the firm recognizes a tough macro for most, Wells’ work suggests Braze is well positioned to blaze a path ahead and maintain growth given its differentiated customer engagement platform, robust value prop, and quick time to value. [Read more]
• ViaSat (VSAT) was assumed with an Equal Weight rating and $34 price target at Morgan Stanley, with the firm calling the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority clearance of the proposed merger between ViaSat and Inmarsat "an important step towards full deal approval and completion." [Read more]
• Barclays initiated coverage of 10x Genomics (TXG) with an Overweight rating and $65 price target. The firm likes 10x’s new product launches, conservative guidance and exposure to underpenetrated markets. [Read more]