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

Oracle upgrade, Wendy’s downgrade, and Microsoft initiation among today’s top calls on Wall Street

Institutional investors and professional traders rely on The Fly to learn which companies the best analysts on Wall Street are saying to buy and sell.

Research analysts at Wall Street’s largest banks issue recommendations on whether a stock should be bought, held, or sold. The Fly’s team of financial market experts scours hundreds of research notes daily to uncover the best trading ideas. Check out today’s top analyst calls from around Wall Street, compiled by The Fly.

Top 5 Upgrades:

  • Jefferies analyst Brent Thill upgraded Oracle (ORCL) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $105, up from $90. Oracle "got their mojo back," said the analyst, who likes the reacceleration growth theme and identifies it as a "tactical pick for value investors."
  • Argus analyst John Staszak upgraded Delta Air Lines (DAL) to Buy from Hold with a $39 price target. Demand for leisure travel is expected to remain strong while business travel should surpass 2019 levels, the analyst tells investors in a research note.
  • Jefferies analyst Brent Thill upgraded DocuSign (DOCU) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $70, up from $50. The analyst believes good news is likely to come in the second half of the year with reset multiples and a reacceleration of growth at some point in 2024. He also upgraded Atlassian (TEAM) and Check Point (CHKP) to Buy from Hold.
  • Goldman Sachs analyst Ryan Nash upgraded First Republic (FRC) to Buy from Neutral with a $142 price target. The analyst now believes the market is valuing the stock off "trough" earnings, and sees several catalysts that could get shares moving higher.
  • Raymond James analyst Jayson Bedford upgraded Zimmer Biomet (ZBH) to Outperform from Market Perform with a $144 price target. Large joint volumes are starting to inflect following a "choppy" period during COVID-19 where Ortho volumes were hit harder than most Med Tech markets, and Bedford thinks this momentum can continue into 2023, and that there is an upward skew to estimates in 2023.

Top 5 Downgrades:

  • Oppenheimer analyst Brian Bittner downgraded Wendy’s (WEN) to Perform from Outperform without a price target. The analyst recommends investors be "extremely selective" in owning restaurant stocks in 2023, saying indicators point to a more challenged setup for consumer spending trends following a robust past two years.
  • UBS analyst Jay Sole downgraded Victoria’s Secret (VSCO) to Sell from Neutral with a price target of $27, down from $43, as part of a broader research note into U.S. Softlines Retail. The analyst warns that the market is underestimating the pressure that industry sales face from the expected recession while overestimating the margin benefits from the easing supply chain constraints. He also downgraded Gap (GPS) to Sell from Neutral.
  • Stephens analyst Vincent Caintic downgraded Capital One (COF) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $79, down from $140, citing worries about credit losses and net interest margin in Capital One’s auto lending business. The analyst also downgraded American Express (AXP) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $134, down from $146.
  • Cowen analyst Stephen Glagola downgraded Coinbase (COIN) to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $36, down from $75. There is low visibility per stabilization in retail trading volumes in 2023 following further the December deterioration, Glagola tells investors in a research note.
  • Jefferies analyst Samad Samana downgraded Shopify (SHOP) to Hold from Buy with a $40 price target. While his multi-year "blue-sky" thesis remains viable, Samana sees a slowdown in e-commerce and
  • Shopify’s "massive" capital expense cycle limiting upside beyond his price target. The analyst also downgraded Crowdstrike (CRWD), Varonis (VRNS), Five9 (FIVE), Verint (VRNT), Vertex (VERX), Dropbox (DBX), and Palantir (PLTR) to Hold from Buy.

Top 5 Initiations:

  • DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria initiated coverage of Microsoft (MSFT) with a Buy rating and $270 price target. The stock warrants a premium valuation as the company should be resilient heading into a potential global economic downturn, the analyst tells investors in a research note.
  • Wolfe Research analyst Deepak Mathivanan initiated coverage of Etsy (ETSY) with a Peer Perform rating and fair value range of $80-$150. Near-term macro concerns and valuation keeps him on the sidelines.
  • Scotiabank analyst Sung Ji Nam initiated coverage of Illumina (ILMN) with a Sector Perform rating and $216 price target. While bullish on Illumina’s core business over the next decade, the analyst favors the sidelines pending further clarity on the company’s ownership of Grail.
  • Benchmark analyst Mark Zgutowicz initiated coverage of AppLovin (APP) with a Sell rating and $7 price target. The analyst is cautious on AppLovin’s near-term business fundamentals and long-term competitive positioning and expects "additional meaningful estimate revisions ahead."
  • BMO Capital analyst Etzer Darout initiated coverage of AstraZeneca (AZN) with an Outperform rating and $82 price target. The analyst believes the company’s growth and margin expansion are undervalued relative to peers as it continues to migrate to higher-margin programs.
Keywords: analyst, analyst calls, upgrades, downgrades, initiations, research, wall street

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