Here are Wednesday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Needham upgrades TransUnion to buy from hold Needham upgraded the stock after its earnings report Tuesday. “We came away most impressed with TRU’s ability to maintain the FY23 guide despite macro uncertainty, while also reaffirming investors that M & A is on the back-burner and that excess cash will be used to prepay debt.” BMO upgrades Microsoft to outperform from market perform BMO upgraded the tech giant after its earnings report Tuesday and said it sees support for “longer-term growth.” “We downgraded MSFT last quarter due to concerns about Azure growth in the near/medium term. We are upgrading the stock to Outperform due to higher conviction that Azure growth headwinds will moderate by the end of CY23 and AI can help support longer-term growth.” Read more about this call here. Jefferies downgrades Tesla to hold from buy Jefferies said it was downgraded the stock “pending a reset of performance and possibly governance.” “A strategy of growth over margin has its logic and resets expectations. It also questions whether Tesla’ s profit edge was structural or a timing difference. However fascinating the investment case remains, relative price aggression is not supportive of a high multiple investment case while unfolding.” Read more about this call here. Barclays downgrades ScottsMiracle-Gro to equal weight from overweight Barclays downgraded the stock due to a “weaker near term earnings outlook.” “Nielsen data for US consumer is very weak and below what SMG has assumed in guidance. While weather trends could improve over the next two months, we think it is highly unlikely that SMG will beat our FY23E EPS.” Raymond James reiterates Amazon as outperform Raymond James said it’s bullish heading into Amazon earnings Thursday. “We believe key focus areas for investors ahead of 1Q results are: 1) core retail growth (we expect relatively in line results); 2) improvement in retail margins in 1Q and outlook for 2Q/2023; 3) AWS growth – we expect 14% growth in 2Q with growth bottoming in the low double digits in 2023.” Deutsche Bank upgrades Novartis to buy from hold Deutsche said in its upgrade of the pharmaceutical company that it sees “emergent pipeline developments” for Novartis. “Coupled with two major readouts for 2024 that is likely to sustain enthusiasm near-term.” Deutsche Bank reiterates Apple as buy Deutsche said it’s standing by its buy rating heading into earnings next week. “We expect AAPL to report F2Q (Mar) results in line with DB/Street estimates, with strength in iPhone offsetting incremental weakness in other areas.” Barclays reiterates Apple as equal weight Barclays raised its price target on the stock to $149 per share from $145 and said it sees an in-line earnings report next week for Apple. “We see in-line March-Q as better iPhone revs offset weaker Macs and Services. June-Q looks to be at risk due to deteriorating demand trends.” William Blair initiates BellRing Brands as outperform William Blair initiated BellRing with an outperform and said the food products company will see “profitable growth in the years ahead.” “These factors, coupled with strong demand generation and operating capabilities and augmented by people talent, create the conditions for profitable growth in the years ahead.” Piper Sandler initiates Celsius Holdings as overweight Piper initiated the beverage company with an overweight and says it’s a “brand that wins with consumers.” “We initiate on CELH with an OW rating and a $110 target. We believe it has a differentiated brand and product in the energy drink space and can continue to drive sustainable, volume driven share gains.” H.C. Wainwright initiates Coinbase as buy H.C. Wainwright initiated the crypto company with a buy and said it sees an attractive entry point. “Lastly, we view COIN as a scarce asset, as the only publicly listed crypto native company in the US with a market cap > $10B, which means competition for investor capital is extremely limited.” Bank of America downgrades Danaher to neutral from buy Bank of America downgraded the commercial products company after a “disappointing” earnings report. “We downgrade Danaher shares from Buy to Neutral following a disappointing 1Q23 update and cut to FY23 guide.” Cantor Fitzgerald initiates ZeroFox as buy Cantor initiated the cybersecurity platform company with a buy and says it’s “unique.” “We are initiating coverage at Overweight with a 12-mo. price target of $3 on ZeroFox , an end-to-end provider of external cybersecurity and identity & privacy platform, seeking to capitalize on the IT budget consolidation theme.” Bank of America reiterates General Motors as buy Bank of America said it’s standing by its buy rating after the company’s earnings on Tuesday. ” GM remains confident in its ability to ramp up volumes without bloating the channel and cutting price. Investment plans in adjacent businesses are confirmed, accelerating what we define as its Core to Future transition.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Alphabet as overweight Morgan Stanley said the internet giant is the “underappreciated” leader in AI. ” GOOGL remains an underappreciated AI leader that will usher in a new era of AI experiences for users, creators, and business partners in our view.” UBS reiterates UPS as buy UBS said it’s standing by its buy rating on the shipping giant following its earnings report Tuesday. ” UPS’ s 1Q23 earnings showed rising cyclical pressures reflected in a negative volume progression in the quarter where volumes were -3%, -5%, and -7% y/y in January, February and March. Domestic package volumes fell 5.4% y/y in 1Q23 compared to a 3.4% y/y decline in 4Q22.” Bank of America reiterates Chipotle as buy Bank of America said it’s standing by its buy rating after the Mexican chain restaurant’s earnings report on Tuesday. “We value CMG on steady state earnings power, assuming the company grows to reach its targeted 7000 domestic store count (now in 8 years).” Bank of America reiterates Roku as buy Bank of America said it’s bullish heading into Roku earnings after the bell on Wednesday. “In our opinion Street ests for F1Q are beatable. Street is modeling F1Q/FY23 active account net adds of less than 1mn & 7.6mn (not been this low since 2017 despite Roku now in more geographies). Roku was able to grow platform revs 5% y/y in F4Q despite the U.S.”
