Here are Friday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Baird reiterates Alphabet as outperform Baird said the company’s Google Cloud Next event next week could be another positive catalyst for the stock. “Next week, we are attending Google Cloud Next, the company’s annual cloud computing conference, where we expect announcements related to Google’s AI initiatives and broader cloud platform enhancements.” Jefferies reiterates Ferrari as hold Jefferies raised its price target on Ferrari to $300 per share from $275 but says it’s sticking with its hold rating. “Ferrari’s guidance methodology of managing expectations tightly and posting small increments may have run its course and require a different approach.” Barclays upgrades Grab Holdings to overweight from equal weight Barclays upgraded the Asian ride-hailing and food delivery company after its earnings report earlier this week. ” GRAB is the dominant ride-hailing and food delivery player in Southeast Asia. JPMorgan reiterates Chewy as overweight JPMorgan said it’s cautious heading into earnings next week for the online pet retailer, but that it’s standing by its overweight rating. “Overall, we believe investors are cautious on CHWY due to Active Customer concerns following soft 3rd-party checks. We believe expectations are for trends to remain muted through 2HFY, w/concerns around the full-year outlook.” Morgan Stanley upgrades Abercrombie & Fitch to equal weight from underweight Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock after its earnings report on Thursday. “The 2Q print lends further credibility to the A & F turnaround, & the Hollister inflection is in early stages.” Morgan Stanley upgrades Shift4Payments to equal weight from underweight Morgan Stanley upgraded the payment company mainly on valuation. “Upgrading FOUR to EW as we see current valuation as more appropriate & reflective of strong volume trends that are balanced w/ LT revenue challenges related to falling spreads.” Citi reiterates Marvel as buy Citi said it’s standing by its buy rating on the stock after its earnings report Thursday, but that it remains a “show me” story. “We like MRVL’s growing AI exposure but believe the stock will remain a show me story till the non-AI biz stabilizes to put meaningful estimate beats at current valuation levels.” Read more about this call here. Piper Sandler reiterates Western Alliance as overweight Piper said the regional bank offers “above average returns at below average multiples.” “We assume coverage of WAL at Overweight partly based on it being among the industry’s most heavily discounted bank stocks for a top performing institution with industry leading returns, relative market strength, and a sophisticated management team.” Read more about this call here. Needham reiterates Nvidia as buy After a transfer in analyst coverage, Needham said it’s standing by its buy rating on the stock. ” NVIDIA reported another strong beat and raise, driven by “tremendous” demand for accelerated computing and generative AI.” Loop upgrades Netflix to buy from hold Loop said Netflix is a key beneficiary of the strike in Hollywood. “We believe the strike will accelerate the decline of the traditional TV business, benefiting streaming, and by definition, benefiting NFLX, the streaming leader. Implementing paid sharing has gone better than expected, and we believe over time NFLX advertising will become a major contributor.” Read more about this call here. Goldman Sachs reiterates Occidental Petroleum as buy Goldman said it likes the company’s free-cash flow. “We remain Buy-rated on OXY as we see attractive FCF generation underpinned by its attractive upstream/chemical assets which can allow for corporate simplification (preferred redemption/further debt reduction) along with share repurchase.” Barclays reiterates Ulta as overweight Barclays said Ulta is “best-in-class” after its earnings report on Thursday. “However, in the near-term, we may see demand and margin pressure, but we believe ULTA is a uniquely positioned, best-in-class specialty multi-brand, multi-price retailer in the beauty sector based on the historical resilience of the beauty category combined with strong company-specific execution.” Benchmark reiterates Imax as buy Benchmark said it’s standing by its buy rating on Imax despite a report of a delay in film releases. “For FY23, revenue from the domestic box office has greatly exceeded our initial projections. Delays in film releases should not be viewed as significant threats to either the ongoing resurgence of the box office or the trend towards increasing volume of new films being launched annually as the market recovers Oppenheimer reiterates Microsoft as outperform Oppenheimer said Microsoft is well positioned for AI. “Cloud remains in the early innings, with AI increasing the overall TAM and adoption rate. We believe Microsoft is best positioned by: 1) taking a neutral operating system model that is supportive of proprietary and open source LLMs [large language models] and other applications alike; 2) expanding its ecosystem to commercialize advances in AI on top of Azure.”
