Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty downgraded her IT Hardware industry view to In-Line from Attractive, noting that hardware spending plans downticked more than any other technology category and across U.S. and European CIOs in the firm's recent checks. Slowing growth, which she attributes to waning cyclical benefits, makes it more difficult to own hardware-heavy data center stocks in the near-term, Huberty tells investors. As previously reported, Huberty downgraded HP Enterprise (HPE) to Equal Weight from Overweight and lowered her price target to $15 from $21, telling investors she thinks it's prudent to take a more cautious near-term stance given that 57% of its revenue comes from Servers and Storage. Huberty also downgraded NetApp (NTAP) to Underweight from Equal Weight and lowered her price target to $58 from $72, citing her view that revenue growth is likely to slow materially on more difficult compares in the coming quarters. Stating that she has a preference for hardware stocks with a higher software mix, Huberty upgraded Nutanix (NTNX) to Overweight and raised her price target to $58 from $57. Nutanix is gaining momentum as a hybrid cloud operating system provider as it adds cloud services, she tells investors. Huberty also upgraded Teradata (TDC) to Overweight from Equal Weight and raised her price target to $55 from $42. Teradata's relevance to large enterprise IT spending is on the rise with Data Warehousing and analytics rising to a top three priority in 2019, she stated.

Bearish flow noted in NetApp with 1,299 puts trading, or 2x expected. Most active are 4/26 weekly 98 puts and 4/26 weekly 97 puts, with total volume in those strikes near 830 contracts. The Put/Call Ratio is 2.39, while ATM IV is up over 1 point on the day. Earnings are expected on May 30th.