Here are Thursday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Morgan Stanley reiterates Ford as overweight Morgan Stanley said it’s standing by its overweight rating on Ford. “While the environment remains uncertain, our OW-rating is an expression of relative confidence in the company’s ability to execute capital discipline, as evidenced by their recent resegmenting.” JPMorgan upgrades Philip Morris to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said it sees an attractive entry point in shares of the tobacco company. “The ongoing regulatory concerns that drove our recent downgrade of BAT to Neutral should support PMI (including potential menthol cigarette and ecigarette bans), and we expect BAT & Altria to cede share to PMI over time.” Read more about this call here. Evercore ISI upgrades Walmart to outperform from in line Evercore said the “traffic turn [is] building” for Walmart. “It’s time. We are upgrading WMT to Outperform from In-Line. Management’s diligent work to pivot the business to omnichannel, divest non-core assets, and invest in productivity has positioned traffic and margins for upside over the next two years.” Evercore ISI upgrades Juniper to outperform from in line Evercore said in its upgrade of the networking cloud company that it’s well positioned for the near- and long-term. “We are upgrading Juniper to Outperform from Inline as we think they are well positioned to deliver better than expected results in both the near and long-term – though upside this time around will be more driven by margin expansion vs. revenue.” Morgan Stanley downgrades Charles Schwab to equal weight from overweight Morgan Stanley said it has “less confidence” in the stock. “Stock is down 30% month-to-date, but with limited visibility on multiple variables we are moving to the sidelines. The SCHW investment thesis has been pushed out and we have less confidence around the timing of an improvement.” Read more about this call here. Barclays resumes Global Payments as overweight Barclays said the stock is attractive. “With the close of the EVOP acquisition, we are reinstating GPN with an Overweight rating and $125 price target, as we view the company’s current valuation/share price as ‘dislocated,’ given GPN’s healthy growth/earnings profile. We see shares as particularly attractive at current levels.” Wells Fargo reiterates Netflix as overweight Wells said it sees “significant upside” to estimates as the streaming giant’s “paid sharing efforts” are paying off. “We provide a scenario analysis on NFLX’s paid sharing efforts, which appear to be creating significant upside to estimates. We see this is a key part of the long-term NFLX bull case with Q1 commentary likely a positive catalyst.” Canaccord initiates Driven Brands as buy Canaccord said said the automotive services company is ” just scratching the surface of its growth potential.” “With a large and aging car parc and compelling unit level economics in a fragmented industry ripe for share gains, we believe market concerns over the discretionary nature of car wash are overblown. The company is just scratching the surface of its growth potential, in our view.” BMO reiterates Costco as outperform BMO said after a meeting with company management that it’s always a good time to buy shares of the warehouse club retailers. “We came away with an unchanged view that there are no bad times to buy COST shares, only better; and we remain bullish on Costco’ s long-term unit expansion outlook.” Evercore ISI reiterates Meta as outperform Evercore said it’s bullish on Meta’s messaging monetization opportunity. “Based on our estimates of comparable ARPUs from WeChat, Kakao, and Line (leading messaging platforms in Asia), we believe there is a potential $20-$100B revenue opportunity for Meta – tho to reach the high-end of this range requires successful unlock of the Conversational Commerce opportunity.” Goldman Sachs upgrades Fluence to buy from neutral Goldman said in its upgrade of the electric services company that it sees upside from the Inflation Reduction Act. “Our positive view on FLNC is driven by: (1) better visibility on an improving gross margin trajectory and ability to achieve adj. EBITDA break-even (potentially ahead of target timeline), (2) upside from IRA battery production tax credits.” B Riley initiates Crocs as buy Riley said in its initiation of the shoe company that it’s underappreciated. “In our view, the polarizing and opinion-driving nature of Crocs’ core clog product, as well as Crocs’ early history, has distracted many investors from appreciating Crocs’ business model, competitive advantages, importance to the footwear ecosystem, and international growth potential.” William Blair initiates General Dynamics as outperform William Blair said the aerospace and defense company is well positioned for these “uncertain times.” “We expect GD’s systems to play a key role in a decades-long rearming of U.S. allies in response to the Ukraine war and geopolitical tension in Taiwan.” Piper Sandler reiterates Tesla as overweight Piper said it’s bullish heading into the automaker’s delivery numbers this weekend. “Regardless, we’re confident that Tesla can exceed 2023 guidance of 1.8M deliveries.” Bank of America upgrades Interpublic to buy from neutral Bank of America said the ad agency is well positioned for “challenging times.” ” IPG has historically been the fastest growing (14% EPS CAGR 2017-22 versus peers -4/7%) and most reliable agency holding company.” Cowen initiates Waste Management as outperform Cowen said waste companies offer “steady earnings and cash flow.” “Solid Waste companies WM (WM), Waste Connections (WCN) and Republic Services (RSG) offer very steady earnings and cash flow streams that we believe are particularly attractive for investors in this time of economic uncertainty.” Citi reiterates Taiwan Semiconductor as buy Citi said Taiwan Semiconductor is a key beneficiary of AI. “AI is witnessing a potential ‘iPhone moment’ and should be a L-T catalyst in the semi industry, despite still small contribution at current early stage.”
Thursday’s top Wall Street analyst calls include an A.I. beneficiary
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