Today's noteworthy upgrades include: Apple (AAPL) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Maxim... Cabela's (CAB) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman... EQT Corporation (EQT) upgraded to Buy from Accumulate at KLR Group... East West Bancorp (EWBC) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo... Enanta (ENTA) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at JMP Securities... Equifax (EFX) upgraded on valuation, Veda deal, growth outlook at Stifel... KLA-Tencor (KLAC) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citi... Kimberly-Clark (KMB) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Societe Generale... Man Group (MNGPY) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies... McDonald's (MCD) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray... Microsoft (MSFT) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill... Netgear (NTGR) upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Raymond James... Pacific Biosciences (PACB) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray... Progenics (PGNX) assumed with a Buy from Hold at Jefferies... Stanley Black & Decker (SWK) upgraded to Buy from Outperform at CLSA... Teck Resources (TCK) upgraded to Buy from Hold at BB&T... ZS Pharma (ZSPH) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley... athenahealth (ATHN) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James.

Wells Fargo analyst Roger Read downgraded EQT Corporation to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $37, down from $48.

Apple will consider making some of its products in Indonesia as the company plans to ramp up investment in Vietnam, Kimberley Kao and Ben Otto of The Wall Street Journal reports. "We talked about the president's desire to see manufacturing in the country, and it's something that we will look at," CEO Tim Cook said at a press conference, according to state news agency Antara. Cook did not offer a timeline for the investment or say what form it could take. Reference Link

The U.K. plans to hold talks this month with Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and others to push a voluntary charter granting parents more control of social media use by young teens, Bloomberg's Ellen Milligan reports. According to people familiar with the matter, ministers want to launch a consultation later this month to gauge ways of limiting the potential harm to children caused by social media, and the proposed voluntary charter may involve tech firms agreeing to alert parents when their children are repeatedly looking up disturbing content. Reference Link

Get caught up quickly on the top news and calls moving stocks with these five Top Five lists.  1... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

Get caught up quickly on the top news and calls moving stocks with these five Top Five lists. 1... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

Revenue in the first quarter was significantly lower than expected, and as a result, PacBio now expects 2024 revenue to be in the range of $170 million to $200 million. The company believes that second quarter revenue will improve over the first quarter and that the second half of the year will improve sequentially as consumables return to sequential growth and the company closes some of the deals that were delayed in the first quarter. At the midpoint of $185 million, the company believes that total Revio shipments for 2024 will be around 120 systems. At the midpoint of the revised guidance, the company expects that consumable revenue will be around $80 million and consumable pull-through on the Revio system will be around $290,000 per system. Given the company's lowered outlook for 2024, PacBio believes it is unlikely to achieve its long-term revenue guidance of at least $500 million in 2026 and is reevaluating the timing of achieving it. The company expects to provide more details on its financial performance and outlook on its earnings call scheduled on May 9, 2024. With the reduced revenue forecast and the planned cost reduction initiatives, PacBio currently expects to end 2024 with cash, cash equivalents, and investments balance in the range of $435 million to $450 million.

CEO Christian Henry said, "Following the successful launch of the Revio system and a record 2023, we entered the year with optimism regarding our growth prospects. As we reached the last couple of weeks of the first quarter, however, we saw an increasing number of customers delay instrument purchases and we experienced some unexpected softness in consumable shipments. As a result, the first quarter came in below our original expectations. We expect these factors to have an impact on our 2024 performance, and we expect to provide further details on our full year outlook on our earnings call scheduled for May 9, 2024. Looking ahead, we are focused on four strategic priorities. First, improving commercial execution to drive adoption of both the Revio and Onso platforms; second, continuing the development of our benchtop long read and high throughput short-read platforms; third, implementing projects to improve our gross margin and drive manufacturing efficiencies; and finally, reducing annualized run-rate operating expenses on a non-GAAP basis by $50 million to $75 million by the end of 2024 in relation to our prior guidance of 5% operating expense growth. Despite these near-term headwinds, we remain highly encouraged by PacBio's long-term growth potential. We are continuing to see new customers adopt Revio as evidenced by the fact that nearly 60% of our Revio placements in the quarter were to new customers. We are also starting to see significant traction with large-scale projects, such as the Estonia National Biobank project announced last month, the first Revio in Latin America to be used for a 1,000-sample whole genome project, and pediatric genome initiatives at hospitals in Canada and Korea. Additionally, we expect consumables to return to sequential growth going forward this year as we continue to grow the Revio installed base and see encouraging trends that point toward increased sequencing on the Revio system. It should be noted that March Revio utilization was at an all-time high - including some of our top customers exceeding our expectations. We have expanded the capabilities of the Revio platform through the roll-out of v13 software upgrade which has enabled our customers with more functionality and better performance. We've also recently launched new reagent kits that improve our customer workflows and launched our new Kinnex kits to continue to drive new customer adoption. I am confident in our ability to create value for all our stockholders and stakeholders. PacBio has some of the world's most advanced sequencing technology and our customers continue to uncover insights into the genome unimaginable with other technologies."

Stifel raised the firm's price target on KLA Corp. to $760 from $685 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm remains upbeat on the initial areas of pickup - HBM and advanced packaging - and expects to see incremental evidence of this broadening, the analyst tells investors in a semiconductor capital equipment group preview note. With utilization in advanced foundry/DRAM nodes tight and tightening and expected upward pressure on initial 2024 capex forecasts, the firm sees the stage being set for orders picking up in the second half of 2024, the analyst added.

Citi lowered the firm's price target on McDonald's to $297 from $312 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. The analyst looked at the recent pullback in the shares as a potential opportunity to get more positive on McDonald's. However, while Citi thinks some of the recent pressure on shares came from faltering high-frequency data, it finds it hard to make a valuation-based or high-frequency data-driven case to own McDonald's shares ahead of a "rock and a hard case" Q1 earnings setup. If the company walks away from guidance for 3%-4% U.S. same-store-sales in 2024, it further biases estimate revisions down, and if it maintains it, optimistic guidance remains a bear case, the analyst tells investors in a research note.

Redburn Atlantic lowered the firm's price target on Equifax to $274 from $278 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. The analyst anticipates strong revenue and earnings growth at Equifax over the next five years, but says the company's valuation already adequately reflects this positive outlook for growth.