harleydavidson inc’s stock hog rose 4 in premarket trade friday after da davidson upgraded the stock to buy from neutral and said it expects secondquarter retail sales are better than feared ” heading into hog’s earnings release next week we believe hog is poised to exceed increasingly low expectations around retail 2q23 earnings and their 2h23 outlook” analyst brandon rolle wrote in a note to clients the analyst raised his price target to 47 from 38 feedback from dealers was more positive in the latest round than in early may and they reported that april was likely the worst month of the quarter after which retail started to pick up dealers also made strong progress in reducing excess inventory said rolle “on average dealers indicated my22 inventory accounted for less than 10 of their new bike inventory exiting june” he wrote “multiple dealers indicated they were actually light on new bike inventory entering july as hog was more disciplined with their 2q23 us shipments and dealers were aggressively liquidating used inventory” other positives include greaterthanexpected preorder demand for the company’s new cvo product launch which dealers report has exceeded harleydavidson’s expectations the stock has fallen 12 in the year to date while the sp 500 spx has gained 18