yum brands is wellpositioned to navigate the murky road ahead for restaurant stocks even as a slowdown in consumer spending looms according to goldman sachs analyst jared garber upgraded shares of the pizza hut and taco bell owner to buy the analyst also hiked his price target on the stock to 135 per share implying upside of 14 from fridays close of 11815 we upgrade yum to buy from sell as the companys highlyfranchised model provides relative insulation from macrovolatility while our analysis of marketbymarket growth across yums brands suggests the company can drive unit growth ahead of its lt algo 45 for the next 2 years he said much of yums success is driven by its unit growth algorithm which garber believes is a sticky and sustainable driver of sales growth given this strength goldman upped its estimates for 2022 2023 and 2024 especially as global markets improve on the global front garber believes yum is poised to benefit from reopenings in china and the international expansion of taco bell meanwhile the companys ongoing push to improve its digital ecosystem including apps should pose longterm benefits over the last 3 years yum has also acquired several digitaltechnology companies that are helping to drive both inrestaurant operational improvements as well as more targeted marketing optionality he said we view these investments as a winning formula for continued unit growth and sss growth while helping to improve franchisee operations and profits and helping to drive yums platform business sharegrowth opportunity shares of yum have dropped roughly 15 this year but could rally another 142 from fridays close given goldmans revised 135 price target in the same note goldman downgraded shares of brinker international which have plummeted 372 this year to neutral cnbcs michael bloom contributed reporting