Here are Tuesday's biggest analyst calls: Apple, Boeing, Starbucks, Target, Home Depot, Nike, SolarEdge and more
Here are Tuesday's biggest calls on Wall Street. KBW initiates Shift4 Payments as buy KBW said the entry point on Shift is too attractive to ignore. "Attractive Entry Point for a Strong Organic and Inorganic Growth Story." UBS initiates Nucor as buy UBS said the metals company is a "high quality industrial." " Nucor has thoughtfully reengineered its business model by significant downstream expansion and upgrading the upstream mill segment to target faster growth and higher value added product and end market verticals." Piper Sandler upgrades Home Depot to overweight from neutral Piper Sandler said it's taking a "more bullish stance on home improvement." "We are taking a more bullish stance on home improvement — and more specifically, large remodel projects - as home equity extraction activity is trending toward improvement in 2024." Barclays upgrades NXP Semiconductors to overweight from equal weight Barclays said the semis company is well-positioned. "When looking at the group we actually think NXP is most well positioned as they are the lowest off the prior peak, they undergrew during the pandemic, and using industry advertised growth rates of above 10% shows them as the best relative vs. Street estimates." Citi adds a positive catalyst watch on Verizon Citi said it's bullish heading into earnings later this month. "We are adding VZ to Citi's Positive Catalyst Watch list as we expect the upcoming 4Q earnings season to highlight the stabilizing wireless competitive landscape." Deutsche Bank upgrades Western Digital to buy from hold Deutsche Bank says it sees an attractive risk/reward for Western Digital shares. "With the stock trading below the low end of the range, we believe the risk-reward is attractive, and we upgrade WDC to Buy with a $65 price target (from $45)." Stifel upgrades Dutch Bros. to buy from hold Stifel said it likes the company's management. "We are upgrading BROS to Buy from Hold for several reasons. We believe the company is poised to make meaningful progress on several fronts under Ms. Christine Barone's leadership." Citi downgrades Anheuser-Busch InBev to neutral from buy Citi said in its downgrade of the stock that it sees earnings risk. "The risk to ABInBev's earnings is rising. " Mizuho downgrades PayPal to neutral from buy Mizuho said in its downgrade of the stock that it sees market share losses. "Downgrading PYPL to Neutral from Buy. Our data suggests that market share loss to Apple Pay looks increasingly challenging. We also worry about an emerging age demographic problem, as younger cohorts in the US gravitate towards newer payment methods like Apple Pay, auto-fill, and BNPL." BMO initiates Datadog as outperform BMO said in its initiation of Datadog that it sees "cloud and consolidation tailwinds." "We are positive on the underlying fundamentals of the observability sector, and we believe Datadog and Dynatrace will consolidate spend as the category expands." Goldman Sachs initiates Nextracker as buy Goldman Sachs said the solar supplier is a "technology leader." "We initiate coverage of Nextracker (NXT) with a Buy rating and a $62, 12-month price target, representing roughly ~50% upside. NXT is the #1 global supplier of solar trackers, with a leadership position both in the US and internationally." Canaccord initiates SolarEdge and Enphase as buy Canaccord said it's bullish on several solar energy companies on Tuesday. "We initiate on SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG) with a HOLD and $80 PT. We also initiate on Enphase Energy (ENPH) with a BUY and $142 PT." Wells Fargo downgrades Boeing to equal weight from overweight Wells Fargo downgraded the stock due to ongoing concerns about the Max issue. "With FAA taking a closer look into BA's production, we think the risk of production/delivery impact increases significantly. We don't see enough upside to justify this risk and downgrade to EW from OW." Wells Fargo upgrades Victoria's Secret to overweight from equal weight Wells Fargo said the stock is a top margin recovery play. "We are upgrading VSCO to OW (one of the best margin recovery plays in the space)." Wells Fargo reiterates Amazon as overweight Wells Fargo said it's bullish heading into Amazon earnings later this month. "Expect another solid print w/ total OI [operating income] 8% above Street & strong retail performance. In absence of new retail efficiency drivers, AWS & ads outlook likely determine stock performance." Morgan Stanley upgrades Starbucks to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said the risk/reward looks attractive for Starbucks shares. "After recent weakness driven by real headwinds across SBUX's global business, we see interesting risk-reward skew here and move to Overweight." Bernstein downgrades Hewlett Packard Enterprise to market perform from outperform Bernstein downgraded the stock on valuation. "We are downgrading HPE from Outperform to Market-Perform, and lowering our price target from $20 to $17." Morgan Stanley upgrades Target to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said the stock is an "attractive investment." "We are upgrading TGT to Overweight with a $165 PT. Risk/reward skews wide and favorably with ~60%/~32.5% upside/downside to our $225/$95 bull/bear cases and ~17% upside to our raised $165 PT." Bernstein upgrades Boston Beer to market perform from underperform Bernstein said the stock's valuation is more reasonable. "We believe this is a more reasonable valuation given SAM' s growth profile, and upgrade SAM to Market-Perform with a Target Price of $335." TD Cowen upgrades BlackRock to outperform from market perform TD Cowen said in its upgrade BlackRock that it sees margin upside. "Steady margins and consistent capital return." Deutsche Bank reiterates Apple as buy Deutsche Bank said its survey checks show Apple Services is showing growth. "With the Services business becoming an increasingly more important part of AAPL's growth story, we continue to run our survey in order to get better insight into the trajectory of the segment." Bank of America upgrades Dow to buy from neutral Bank of America said in its upgrade of Dow that it sees an "upcycle for petrochemicals." "After turning more constructive on Dow's shares and moving to a Neutral in October 2023, we are now raising our rating to Buy, with a PO of $60 (from $57). Our upgrade is predicated on our petrochemical sentiment indicator moving into positive territory in late-2023." Morgan Stanley upgrades DocuSign to equal weight from underweight Morgan Stanley said it sees a more balanced risk/reward for shares of DocuSign. "With this in mind, we believe shares appropriately discount the respective Bull/Bear scenarios and the potential likelihood of an acquisition, and as a result we move to EW." BMO upgrades Fluence to outperform from market perform BMO said it's getting more bullish on the energy company. "As previously noted in our year ahead report and our recent work, we have been constructive on FLNC as we see it as one of the few names in our sector in 2024 that we think offers investors sustainable revenue growth and visibility that is not overly dependent on rates or additional policy clarity." Citi upgrades Sallie Mae to buy from neutral Citi said in its upgrade of the stock that it sees "balance sheet growth." "We are upgrading Sallie Mae to Buy from Neutral and increasing our target price to $23 from $14 due to higher expected balance sheet growth, potential to grow market share from a competitor exit, and we expect higher gain on sale margins as interest rates fall from elevated levels." Bernstein reiterates Constellation Brands as a top pick Bernstein said the beverage company is a top idea in 2024. " STZ has the best category exposure within US beer, with 86% of profits derived from a beer portfolio composed entirely of super premium Mexican imports." Morgan Stanley reiterates Nike as overweight Morgan Stanley said Nike is a top idea in 2024. "In Brands, NKE is our top Brand Overweight, & we'd look to get more constructive on other Brands with compelling fundamental rate-of-change, valuation re-rating, & sentiment improvement opportunities ~heading into 2H."