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

FleetCor upgrade, Paramount downgrade, and Meta Platforms 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.

Find all top-rated stocks by the best-rated analysts on TipRanks.

Top 5 Upgrades:

• BofA upgraded FleetCor (FLT) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $240, up from $208. The firm expects a "mostly in-line" Q4 report from FleetCor, but also expects the company to announce additional progress in addressing idiosyncratic headwinds "head on," such as the FTC case and divestiture of the Russia business.
• William Blair upgraded FibroGen (FGEN) to Outperform from Market Perform following a deep dive on the potential of pamrevlumab, its wholly owned monoclonal antibody against connective tissue growth factor, which is being evaluated in the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, locally advanced pancreatic cancer, or LAPC, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD.
• Atlantic Equities upgraded LyondellBasell (LYB) to Overweight from Neutral with a $110 price target. The company’s Q4 is likely to see an earnings trough, and despite economic uncertainty, market conditions for LyondellBasell are improving as China reopens and the U.S. feedstock advantage is boosted by lower natural gas prices, the firm says.
• BTIG upgraded New Fortress Energy (NFE) to Buy from Neutral with a $50 price target. At the current stock price, investors are getting the company’s FLNG business for free, the firm says.
• Goldman Sachs upgraded Inter&Co (INTR) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $4.20, down from $4.60. The firm’s more constructive stance is based on the company’s increased focused on profitability with a "more prudent" approach to growth and pricing, as well as its efforts to improve efficiency.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Macquarie downgraded Paramount (PARA) to Underperform from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $15 given that its ad exposure is highest in the peer group at 35% of sales.
• Bernstein downgraded Edwards Lifesciences (EW) to Underperform from Outperform with a price target of $66, down from $95. The firm believes U.S. TAVR market growth could remain sluggish for a while, and worse, it thinks Medtronic (MDT) will take share from Edwards.
• Atlantic Equities downgraded Bank of America (BAC) to Neutral from Overweight with a $40 price target, citing the bank’s slowing net interest income growth and headwinds facing its non-II revenues in 2023.
• Stephens downgraded Truist Financial (TFC) to Equal Weight from Overweight with a $53 price target. Recent earnings reports from the super-regional bank group "confirmed investor fears" that deposit competition heated up in the quarter and deposit betas may exceed the prior cycle, the firm says.
• Jefferies downgraded Nu Skin (NUS) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $39, down from $43. While "hopeful" about the growth opportunity within China following the lifting of lockdowns, a worsening macro backdrop may challenge consumer demand for their higher priced beauty and wellness assortment and the tone surrounding the region is "tempered with concerns over possible regulatory intervention" from the Chinese government, the firm says.

Top 5 Initiations:

• LightShed Partners initiated coverage of Meta Platforms (META) with a Buy rating and $200 price target. The firm notes that its 2024 GAAP EPS forecast of $11.70 for Meta is "notably above" the consensus 2024 EPS forecast of $9.90.
• Piper Sandler initiated coverage of Incyte (INCY) with an Overweight rating and $100 price target. The shares have been largely range-bound for seven years but Incyte’s foray into the dermatology space with Opzelura will bring about the next leg of growth for the company as it diversifies beyond Jakafi, the firm says.
• Morgan Stanley resumed coverage of Fox Corp. (FOXA) with an Equal Weight rating and $37 price target. While Fox continues to generate substantial free cash flow from its TV networks, pressures on the linear TV ecosystem will likely cap the multiple on shares, the firm argues.
• Craig-Hallum initiated coverage of Xometry (XMTR) with a Buy rating and $48 price target. Revenue growth has continued at a blistering pace, gross margin improvement has accelerated, and the company is on the cusp of EBITDA profitability, Craig-Hallum notes, adding that it still believes the company remains in the early innings of its scaling.
• Lake Street initiated coverage of CVRx (CVRX) with a Buy rating and $20 price target. CVRx at its current point offers investors the chance to participate in an "Inspire-like growth trajectory and multiple expansion story," said the firm, which adds that extrapolating the Inspire Medical (INSP) scenario "supports a long-term stock opportunity of over $50" for CVRx.

Keywords: analyst, analyst calls, upgrades, downgrades, initiations, research, wall street