(This is CNBC Pro’s live coverage of Tuesday’s analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) Tuesday started with Nvidia getting more praise from one analyst, and a battery stock downgrade. Bank of America reiterated its buy rating on Nvidia, citing the announcement of new artificial intelligence products. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley downgraded Freyr Battery, citing a tough environment for the lithium-ion battery maker. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. 5:41 a.m. ET: Roth MKM initiates AMD with a buy rating Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices is a “strong investment opportunity,” according to Roth MKM. The firm initiated the stock with a buy rating and $125 price target, which suggests 7% upside from Monday’s close. AMD has rallied 80.3% in 2023 amid surging demand for AI chips. “We believe AMD’s differentiated portfolio of high- performance compute/networking processors and accelerators represents a strong investment opportunity,” analyst Suji Desilva wrote in a Monday note. Desilva cited AMD’s growing market share in the cloud server and enterprise markets, as well as strong leverage in AI infrastructure growth. He added that AMD will likely benefit from the cyclical client PC recovery. “While overall consumer demand has remained muted, we nonetheless expect these segments to exhibit a recovery progression over the next several quarters. Accordingly, we expect AMD to report steadily recovering revenue in its client and gaming segment,” Desilva said. — Hakyung Kim 5:35 a.m. ET: Morgan Stanley downgrades Freyr Battery Morgan Stanley isn’t sure if shares of Freyr Battery can be bounce back amid broader pressures on the battery storage market. “3Q brings a narrative change in FREY’s outlook with new risks to tech, strategy and funding that’s been appropriately discounted by the stock market. While cash burn is manageable, the stock should trade at discount to cash value until FREY shows progress on its sample cell campaign,” analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a Monday note. Jonas downgraded shares to equal weight from overweight. He also slashed his price target to $2 from $13, which suggests 14.3% upside from Monday’s close. Investment in Freyr’s Norwegian gigafactory Giga Arctic has been paused, and the company seems to be prioritizing U.S. production — which eliminates “some of the most attractive aspects of the original FREY thesis as a ‘clean’ battery manufacturer,” said Jonas. The company’s 24M technology customer qualification plant is also seeing many delays, which has contributed to a worsening funding outlook, the analyst added. “There may be a number of factors that ultimately dictate the ability of FREY to raise new capital to commission giga-scale facilities. In our view, the most important of these is execution of the CQP itself. If they can’t make cells in an automated way, it may be difficult for FREY to find funding,” said Jonas. Shares were trading 2.3% lower Tuesday before the bell. The stock is down nearly 80% year to date. — Hakyung Kim 5:35 a.m. ET: Bank of America reiterates buy rating on Nvidia Bank of America reiterated Nvidia as buy and maintained a price target of $650 per share after the company announced an upgraded version of one of its key AI products. “Importantly, H200 is compatible with its predecessor H100 installations, enabling faster time to market. We view the latter point as critical, as hyperscalers do not need to invest to reconfigure their existing hardware platform, incentivizing customers to remain key partners of NVDA,” wrote analyst Vivek Arya. The upgrade “simplicity only adds to the competitive portfolio NVDA holds, which coincides with 1) a leading AI networking platform supporting both Infiniband/Ethernet connections, and 2) a leading software stack, which has already shown abilities to upgrade performance of GPUs already deployed. Nvidia is coming off its ninth straight day of gains, its longest winning streak since March. If the stock rises Wednesday, it would tie a winning run not seen since 2016. — Fred Imbert
