Unilever upgrade, Cisco downgrade and Cloudflare coverage 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.
Top 5 Upgrades:
- Societe Generale analyst David Hayes upgraded Unilever (UL) to Buy from Sell with an unchanged price target of 4,100 GBp, as shares are down 11% since the company's "clumsy" offer to acquire GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) consumer unit.
- Bank of America analyst Robert Ohmes upgraded Kroger (KR) to Neutral from Underperform as part of his updated coverage of grocery names. The analyst contended that the company has a more "solid position" entering 2022.
- UBS analyst Robin Farley upgraded Las Vegas Sands (LVS) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $53, up from $44. The new Macau gaming law significantly lowers risk for the company, while the phasing out of satellite casinos will also reduce competition, the analyst contended.
- JPMorgan analyst Richard Shane upgraded Rocket Companies (RKT) to Overweight from Underweight with a price target of $15, down from $17.50. The analyst calls Rocket his top trade into fourth quarter earnings reports.
- KeyBanc analyst Thomas Blakey assumed coverage and upgraded Akamai (AKAM) to Overweight from Sector Weight with a $140 price target. The analyst is positive on the company's role as the "leading content delivery network, cybersecurity, and edge computing service provider."
Top 5 Downgrades:
- Goldman Sachs analyst Rod Hall downgraded Cisco Systems (CSCO) to Neutral from Buy with an unchanged price target of $65. The analyst noted the shares are approaching the price target while his fundamental outlook "is now in line with consensus."
- KeyBanc analyst Kenneth Zener downgraded KB Home (KBH) and Lennar (LEN) to Underweight from Sector Weight with price targets of $38 and $86, respectively. The analyst thinks builders' operational success cannot offset cyclical tailwinds ebbing in time.
- Wells Fargo analyst Lawrence Biegelsen downgraded Zimmer Biomet (ZBH) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $124, down from $170. The analyst noted that following the spine and dental spin in the first half of 2022, the remaining Zimmer Biomet would have one of the lowest weighted average market growth rates in the large cap medtech space, and would be highly levered to the slow growth hip and knee markets.
- JPMorgan analyst Richard Shane double downgraded Home Point Capital (HMPT) to Underweight from Overweight without a price target. The company has relatively higher exposure to ongoing competition in the wholesale channel as the industry faces volume and margin contraction, Shane contended.
- Bank of America analyst Robert Ohmes downgraded Grocery Outlet (GO) to Underperform from Neutral with a price target of $23, down from $26. The analyst expects the company to have challenges on sales and margins in 2022.
Top 5 Coverage Initiations:
- KeyBanc analyst Thomas Blakey initiated coverage of Cloudflare (NET) with an Overweight rating and $132 price target. The analyst is positive on the company as the leading CDN with differentiated freemium model that enables agility and iterative new product development, while generating potentially meaningful total addressable market expansion.
- KeyBanc analyst Thomas Blakey initiated coverage of VMware (VMW) with an Overweight rating and $164 price target to reflect the view of the company's incumbent, strategic importance in hybrid cloud.
- Wedbush analyst David Chiaverini initiated coverage of SoFi Technologies (SOFI) with an Outperform rating and $20 price target. The analyst said the Outperform rating is based on the company's "strong" growth outlook with a five-year revenue CAGR of 28% through 2026 as well as an increasing brand presence that should drive member growth.
- Bank of America analyst Curtis Nagle initiated coverage of Opendoor Technologies (OPEN) with an Underperform rating and $8.00 price target. The company is growing revenue and potential for shares gains are high, but the iBuying model is "inherently risky, low margin, and capital intensive."
- Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Mullan initiated coverage of US Foods (USFD) with a Buy rating and $44 price target. The analyst believes the stock should trade at "normalized" valuation multiples on his 2023 estimates, which he says are "not particularly variant to consensus in any notable way."
Symbols:
UL GSK KR LVS RKT AKAM CSCO KBH LEN ZBH - $125.50 /
-0.755 (-0.60%)
HMPT GO NET VMW SOFI OPEN USFD Keywords: analyst, analyst calls, upgrades, downgrades, initiations, research, wall street