Twitter upgrade, F5 Networks downgrade, and Tesla 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:
- Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett upgraded Twitter (TWTR) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $52, up from $33, after having reviewed new, more detailed disclosures in Twitter's lawsuit against Elon Musk. His "former skepticism about Twitter has been flipped" as Twitter's disclosure of very detailed efforts to explain its spam bot calculations to Musk, and Musk's reluctance to engage, now "instead makes us skeptical about Musk," Crockett tells investors.
- Deutsche Bank analyst Krisztina Katai upgraded Costco (COST) to Buy from Hold with a $579 price target. Costco is one of the most consistent operators in the group, and its steady traffic gains and high membership renewal rates "serve as key differentiators in an increasingly uncertain backdrop," Katai tells investors in a research note.
- BMO Capital analyst Ambrish Srivastava upgraded AMD (AMD) to Outperform from Market Perform with a price target of $115, up from $100. The analyst sees a "sustainable compute franchise as a result of continued superior execution on all fronts under Dr. Su's leadership."
- Oppenheimer analyst Bryan Blair upgraded Idex Corp. (IEX) to Outperform from Perform with a $215 price target. The analyst appreciates the "uncertain macro landscape and clear recession angst," but also believes underlying industrial demand remains solid and he likes the prospect of relative sector strength through a moderate downturn.
- JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee upgraded Juniper Networks (JNPR) to Overweight from Neutral with a $36 price target. The analyst is taking a "defensive stance" with his networking and hardware coverage universe as he sees increasing signs of the challenging macro feed into demand trends.
Top 5 Downgrades:
- Credit Suisse analyst Sami Badri downgraded F5 Networks (FFIV) to Neutral from Outperform with a price target of $167, down from $225. The analyst's channel checks suggest enterprise and government business activity may slowdown in Q3 of 2022. JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee also downgraded F5 Networks to Neutral from Overweight with a $178 price target. The analyst is taking a "defensive stance" with his networking and hardware coverage universe as he sees increasing signs of the challenging macro feed into demand trends.
- Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Louise Chen downgraded ContraFect (CFRX) to Neutral from Overweight with a price target of $1, down from $15. The company announced that the Data Safety Monitoring Board of the DISRUPT study has completed a pre-specified, interim futility analysis and recommended that the trial be stopped because the conditional power of the study was below the pre-specified threshold for futility, Chen tells investors in a research note. SVB Securities analyst Roanna Ruiz also downgraded ContraFect to Market Perform from Outperform with a $1 price target.
- Baird analyst David Manthey downgraded Fastenal (FAST) to Neutral with a $48 price target, Pool Corp. (POOL) to Neutral with a $398 price target and SiteOne Landscape (SITE) to Neutral with a $129 price target. He is lowering estimates in the group to reflect deflation and "garden-variety 2023 recession" given signs of deterioration in the fundamental backdrop that are starting to appear, said Manthey, who calls out the trio as the "highest-valuation stocks" in his industrial distribution coverage.
- Citi analyst Paul Lejuez downgraded Dollar General (DG) to Neutral from Buy with an unchanged price target of $258. While Dollar General is a "defensive stock to own in an uncertain environment," trading at 14.1 times estimated fiscal 2023 EBITDA, many already appreciate its defensive characteristics, Lejuez tells investors in a research note.
- Goldman Sachs analyst Geydar Mamedov downgraded BHP Group (BHP) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of 2,200 GBp, down from 3,000 GBp. The analyst says the downgrade is primarily valuation driven, even as he continues to see BHP as a "well-run business with superior margins and operating performance."
Top 5 Initiations:
- Truist analyst William Stein initiated coverage of Tesla (TSLA) with a Buy rating and $1,000 price target. He expects Tesla to "capture the pole position" in terms of unit share among EV auto makers and also contends that Tesla has "significant, under-appreciated" margin upside potential.
- Credit Suisse analyst John Roberts initiated coverage of CF Industries (CF) with an Underperform rating and $73 price target. The analyst believes farm economics and fertilizer profitability are near peak levels. He expects CF's valuation to remain low until the cycle eventually bottoms.
- Needham analyst Ryan Koontz initiated coverage of Adtran (ADTN) with a Buy rating and $28 price target. The company's strong incumbency in North America and Western Europe, along with government elimination of Chinese suppliers, position Adtran to benefit from new 10G fiber-to-the-home deployments, the analyst tells investors in a research note.
- Benchmark analyst Daniel Kurnos initiated coverage of Magnite (MGNI) with a Buy rating and $18 price target. The analyst cites Magnite's growing CTV footprint, where ex-TAC revenue is growing at over 50% this year, particularly with all facets of advertising continuing to migrate towards programmatic execution.
- SVB Securities analyst Marc Goodman initiated coverage of Karuna Therapeutics (KRTX) with an Outperform rating and $170 price target. This is a "late-stage story" given that Karuna already has one positive schizophrenia study with KarXT, and thus it only needs one of the two ongoing pivotal studies to be successful to file for the treatment of psychosis in schizophrenia, Goodman tells investors in a research note.
Symbols:
TWTR COST IEX - $180.80 /
-0.735 (-0.40%)
FFIV CF AMD TSLA - $710.73 /
+11.165 (+1.60%)
ADTN FAST POOL - $367.86 /
-6.065 (-1.62%)
SITE DG JNPR CFRX BHP MGNI KRTX - $128.99 /
-1.265 (-0.97%)
Keywords: analyst, analyst calls, upgrades, downgrades, initiations, research, wall street