Here are Thursday's biggest analyst calls of the day: Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Rivian & more
Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday: Bank of America reiterates Snap as buy Bank of America kept its buy rating on shares of Snap after the company announced it acquired technology company NextMind. The firm said this is the next "piece to the puzzle" for augmented reality. "On 3/23, Snap announced that it has acquired NextMind, a France based Brain computer interface startup. ... .The technology monitors neural activity to understand a user's intent when interacting with a computing interface, allowing a user to push a virtual button simply by focusing on it." Bank of America reiterates Uber as buy Bank of America said Uber's demand growth is still positive despite rising gas prices. "Although driver supply concerns have increased with gas price increases, our data indicates that wait times are still better than 2021. We think driver supply risk may be elevated 1Q/2Q, with potential take rate pressure if Uber chooses to offset gas costs by more than the fee amount, given need for drivers to keep up with growing demand." Loop reiterates Apple as buy Loop said that Apple continues to take market share with its various iPhone offerings. "Many pundits lazily bifurcate the market into 'low-mid-high' bands/brands, but we see AAPL dividing the TAM up with much more granularity. ... .The 2022 iPhones will be the catalyst for the broader market TAM (total addressable market) coverage." Morgan Stanley reiterates Amazon as overweight Morgan Stanley its analysis shows the impact of rising fuel prices for Amazon is slightly overdone. "Today we address the impact of higher diesel costs on AMZN' s cost structure and EBIT. As detailed below, while we expect a significant near-term impact (we lower '22/'23 EBIT by ~15%/~2% as we now assume higher diesel costs into '23) there are also many opportunities for AMZN to offset higher fuel costs and drive upside to our still above Street estimates." Morgan Stanley reiterates Microsoft as overweight Morgan Stanley said Microsoft has "growth durability" and "attractiveness." "While investors acknowledge strong secular growth trends supporting demand for the broad solution set, questions remain on the durability of growth given Microsoft' s scale. Assessing the scale of these market opportunities bolsters confidence in growth durability and the attractiveness of MSFT." Mizuho reiterates Rivian as buy Mizuho lowered its price target on Rivian to $95 per share from $100, but said it sees the company ramping up supply in the second half. "Maintaining our estimates for ~24k deliveries in 2022E (year end), though risks for push-out into 2023E is possible." Citi initiates a pair trade on KeyCorp and Citizens Financial Citi initiated a pair trade on overweight-rated Citizens and underweight-rated KeyCorp, saying Citizens has "more dry powder" to deploy, while KeyCorp could display "increased asset sensitivity." " CFG and KEY trade at a similar implied COE (cost of equity) and have had similar YTD performance, despite our view that CFG has over 10% upside to 2022 EPS vs only low single digit EPS upside for KEY.' Bank of America initiates Logitech as buy Bank of America said Logitech is a "quality compounder" at an attractive price. "Our Buy rating is based on: (A) strong track record of execution, highest ROIC in our coverage at 34% and market share gains which we expect to continue; (B) secular megatrend (social media, gaming, video calling etc.)." Read more about this call here. JPMorgan reiterates Cleveland Cliffs as a top pick JPMorgan reiterated its overweight rating on shares of the steel company, noting it has key steelmaking assets for the auto industry. "Within the steel group, CLF remains a clear top pick, which is long raw materials via its iron ore assets, pellets with excess capacity, HBI (hot briquetted iron) plant, scrap business and also has key steelmaking assets for the automotive industry." Deutsche Bank upgrades Johnson Controls to buy from hold Deutsche said the multinational conglomerate is well-positioned to weather the current macro "storm." "Attractive relative exposures in the current dynamic macro construct In the ever-changing current macro construct, we see JCI as attractively positioned to weather the storm, with secular megatrend growth drivers to boot. Read more about this call here. Berenberg downgrades International Flavors to hold from buy Berenberg said the food and health products company could be impacted by inflationary pressures. "However, the magnitude of cost inflation not only puts near term margins under further pressure but also the focus on cost recovery could put delivery of merger benefits (especially revenue synergies) at risk. ... On our new forecasts, IFF trades on 21x FY23 P/E." Credit Suisse upgrades Liberty Global to outperform from neutral Credit Suisse said "momentum is turning" for shares of Liberty Global. "Our previous concern was the challenged operational performance, but we now believe the business can get back to growth and see upside from fibre and other monetisations." JPMorgan upgrades British American Tobacco to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said the tobacco company that is best positioned to become profitable in the e-cigarettes space. "Vapor (e-cigarettes) is a key pillar of the global nicotine industry's future. In light of its sharp bounce back in 2021 and BAT becoming profitable in US Vapor, we acknowledge the top and bottom line opportunity in Vapor is greater than previously assumed and will take on greater investor focus with Heated Tobacco (HTP) expected to take a step back near term due to disruption in Eastern Europe." Bank of America downgrades NetApp to neutral from buy Bank of America said the hybrid cloud management company has limited upside from current levels. "We attended NTAP' s 2022 Investor Day in-person in NYC and while we walked away confident on management's continued strong execution, in our opinion, investments required for growth will prevent NTAP from realizing operating leverage which, in turn, will limit upside in shares from current levels." Read more about this call here . Morgan Stanley downgrades Alcoa to equal weight from overweight Morgan Stanley said in its downgrade of Alcoa that its robust balance sheet and strong profitability are already priced in to the stock. "Commodity prices remain elevated, yet downside risks are building on potential demand destruction. Tactically downgrading mining industry view to In-Line to reflect risks of a stagflationary shock and secular tailwinds from electrification trends." Read more about this call here. Citi adds Wolfspeed to the focus list Citi added the semiconductor company for wireless and radio frequency systems to its focus list, calling it a "solid ESG play." "We are adding Wolfspeed to Citi's US Focus List, which is reserved for Citi's highest conviction stocks." Evercore ISI reiterates McDonald's as outperform Evercore said in a note to clients on Thursday that McDonald's has "strong brand momentum." "We are reiterating our 1Q SSS of +4% as we believe that a strong February made up for a slow start to the year. More recently, we believe that momentum has likely slowed by ~5pp as well. We see continued strong momentum for the brand. However, we believe the rollout of frozen carbonated beverage may be slower-than-hoped due to machine supply chain issues."

Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi during the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange during the company's IPO, May 10, 2019. Brendan McDermid | Reuters