Foot Locker upgrade, HP Inc. downgrade, and MasterCraft Boat 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:
- BofA analyst Lorraine Hutchinson upgraded Foot Locker (FL) to Neutral from Underperform with a $43 price target, up from $28. The naming of Mary Dillion as CEO is a "thesis changing move" given her "strong reputation in the industry," Hutchinson tells investors in a research note. Citi analyst Paul Lejuez also upgraded Foot Locker to Neutral from Sell with a price target of $38, up from $25, following the news that former Ulta Beauty (ULTA) CEO Mary Dillon is taking over the role of CEO.
- Raymond James analyst Patrick Tyler Brown upgraded Martin Marietta (MLM) to Outperform from Market Perform with a $410 price target after assuming coverage of the name. A number of recent headwinds facing the company "could flip to tailwinds into 2023 and beyond, possibly ahead of what the market appreciates," the analyst tells investors in a research note. Brown also upgraded Vulcan Materials (VMC) to Outperform from Market Perform with a $197 price target after assuming coverage of the name.
- UBS analyst Andrew Mok upgraded DaVita (DVA) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $117, up from $106, after assuming coverage of the name. The shares offer a favorable risk/reward, which skews 2-to-1 to the upside, Mok tells investors in a research note.
- JPMorgan analyst Lin Chen upgraded ZTO Express (ZTO) to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $35, up from $27. The analyst increased earnings forecasts through fiscal 2024 by 14%-15% on better than expected volume growth and pricing trends in Q2.
- Piper Sandler analyst John Barnidge upgraded Horace Mann (HMN) to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $42, up from $38. The back-to-school period could be a "strong distribution tailwind" as it will be the first "normal" back-to-school post pandemic, Barnidge tells investors in a research note.
Top 5 Downgrades:
- Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers downgraded HP Inc. (HPQ) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $30, down from $35 ahead of its Q3 results. The analyst states that while he maintains a positive view on the company's strong free cash flow and continued execution on driving toward a richer portfolio mix, he also sees deteriorating PC fundamentals and macroeconomic sensitivity in its printer results.
- Piper Sandler analyst Christopher Raymond downgraded Biohaven Pharmaceutical (BHVN) to Neutral from Overweight with an unchanged price target of $149. The shares are now within $1 of the proposed acquisition price, Raymond tells investors in a research note.
- Stephens analyst Vincent Caintic downgraded America's Car-Mart (CRMT) to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $83, down from $113. America's Car-Mart's Q1 results were "difficult," and the analyst expects auto volume growth headwinds alongside with credit deterioration through this year, Caintic tells investors in a research note.
- BMO Capital analyst John Kim downgraded UDR (UDR) to Market Perform from Outperform with an unchanged price target of $54. UDR is a "high-quality company," but its 2023 revenue set-up and demand profile are both in-line with sector averages, Kim tells investors in a research note.
- HSBC analyst Sorabh Daga downgraded Krispy Kreme (DNUT) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $15, down from $17. The company's "weak" Q2 revenues cast new doubts on its brand strength, pricing power and revenue management capability, Daga tells investors in a research note.
Top 5 Initiations:
- Stifel analyst Drew Crum initiated coverage of MasterCraft Boat (MCFT) with a Buy rating and $35 price target. The analyst said that, at a macro level, he is positive in his outlook for the U.S. boating industry over the longer-term, and believes the market is better equipped to endure a recession, for the near/intermediate-term.
- Benchmark analyst Matthew Harrigan initiated coverage of CSG (CSGS) with a Buy rating and $73 price target. The analyst says the company has identified "huge current and new" total addressable markets across its businesses, enabling "ample growth with high execution in competitive markets."
- Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch initiated coverage of Microvast (MVST) with an Outperform rating and $8 price target. The analyst views Microvast as a "pioneering battery material company, innovating around the molecular structure of critical battery composition to improve battery performance and reduce material use."
- Capital One initiated coverage of Snowflake (SNOW) with an Equalweight rating and $182 price target.
- Citi analyst Fatima Boolani initiated coverage of Consensus Cloud Solutions (CCSI) with a Neutral rating and $65 price target. The analyst is positive on the company's "leading position" as a software-as-a-service digital fax solutions provider with "steady share gain runway in a highly fragmented ~$2B market."
Symbols:
HPQ MCFT CSGS MVST SNOW BHVN CRMT - $92.31 /
-26.99 (-22.62%)
UDR DNUT MLM VMC - $177.79 /
-0.425 (-0.24%)
DVA ZTO HMN FL CCSIConsensus Cloud Solutions
ULTA - $409.00 /
+4.435 (+1.10%)
Keywords: analyst, analyst calls, upgrades, downgrades, initiations, research, wall street