Gabelli analyst John Tinker started Spotify (SPOT) with a Hold rating and $130 price target, estimating that the owner of the world's largest streaming subscription service will generate EUR5.2B of revenue and negative EBITDA of (EUR232M) in 2018. He recommends Pandora Media (P) instead, which he said can be bought for a discount to the $10.50 price paid by Liberty controlled SiriusXM (SIRI) and has the option of eventually launching as a free advertising service in Sirius' 70M satellite radio installed cars.

Wells Fargo raised the firm's price target on Spotify to $400 from $310 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. A year ago, Spotify's long-term profitability was in question, the firm notes. Now, it's a question of "how good?" margins can get. Wells believes strong profit growth supports its 41-times EV/EBITDA multiple.

Citi upgraded Sirius XM (SIRI) to Neutral from Sell with a price target of $3.30, down from $4.10. Over the last few months, the net asset value discount between Liberty SiriusXM (LSXMA) and Sirius XM has narrowed from 40% to 2%. To Citi's surprise, this occurred via a decline in Sirius XM's equity without appreciation in Liberty SiriusXM's value. The firm now finds the risk/reward in both securities as relatively balanced. As such, Citi upgraded Sirius XM from Sell to Neutral and downgraded Liberty SiriusXM from Buy to Neutral.

Pivotal Research upgraded Sirius XM (SIRI) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $4.90, down from $5.05. The magnitude of the decline in Sirius XM's valuation has been surprising, exacerbated by a current lack of institutional ownership and the fact most investors owned parent Liberty Sirius XM (LSXMK) to play the narrowing of the net asset value gap rather than as a way to invest in Sirius, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says this has created an attractive investment opportunity, highlighted by the 55% upside to its new target price. It views Sirius as a free cash flow acceleration story.

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Evercore ISI raised the firm's price target on Spotify to $340 from $285 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares following what the firm describes as "Beat & Raise Q1 EPS results." The "Big Story" this quarter was profitability, with gross margin and operating income both at record highs, says the analyst, who is removing the stock from the firm's "Tactical Underperform" list. The list inclusion was based on risks to Q1 operating income and to the Q2 MAU outlook and while "both of these risks materialized," they were "utterly swamped by the major Gross Margin inflection point," the analyst tells investors.

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Reports Q1 ad supported MAUs 388M vs. 317M last year.

Reports Q1 MAUs 615M vs. 515M last year. "Overall, we are encouraged by the strong start to the year and view the business as well positioned to deliver on the goals outlined at our 2022 Investor Day."