Here are Friday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Morgan Stanley reiterates Apple as top pick Morgan Stanley said it sees a “catalyst-rich event path” for the tech giant. “Panted iPhone demand, re-acceleration of services, underestimated upside potential from GM and Apple’s first new product launch in 8 years are short-term catalysts supporting our OW rating and the new $180 PT.” Read more about here this call. Gordon Haskett downgrades Domino’s Pizza to hold from buy Gordon Haskett said it was concerned about slowing growth in the pizza supply chain. “DPZ will not be able to achieve a return to 6-10% compound annual system revenue growth – meaning the company’s industry-leading ‘long-term algo’ days are in the rear-view mirror.” UBS upgrades First Solar to buy from neutral UBS said First Solar was one of the main beneficiaries of the anti-inflation law. “We are upgrading shares of FSLR to Buy from Neutral and within our coverage, see FSLR as the most significant beneficiary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) with high visibility into capacity, revenue and earnings growth through 2026.” Read more about here this call. BMO downgrades Vornado to underperforming market BMO said it sees leasing issues and refinancing issues for the office real estate mutual fund. “We downgrade DEI and VNO to Underperform – both have high leasing and refinancing risks.” JPMorgan downgrades Hormel to underweight from neutral. “We downgrade HRL stocks from Neutral to Underweight following Q1 ’23 earnings and a 6% cut in guidance, which we believe does not fully mitigate earnings risk.” Barclays names Meta and Nvidia as top AIs -Picks Barclays said Meta and Nvidia are the top AI beneficiaries. “Investors and media have generally focused on mega-cap players like MSFT and NVDA as the main beneficiaries of disruption from enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, but we believe generative AI/Large Language Models (LLMs) have potential impacts could have day-to-day utility and productivity across consumer and enterprise applications.” Morgan Stanley names Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta as top AI Morgan Stanley names Alphabet, Amazon, and Alphabet as top picks and says AI is at an inflection point “The leading platforms (GOOGL/AMZN/META) top this list, and we show how AI-powered advancements (incremental revenue and opex efficiency) could propel our current price targets by more than 10%.” Barclays reiterates Alphabet as overweight Barclays said it remains overweight the stock but sees it range bound for the foreseeable future I are years ahead, they face new risks from two vectors: 1) higher inference costs from AI-assisted search results, and 2) potential loss of query shares to ChatGPT, Apple, Bing, and others.” Daiwa reiterates Tesla as outperformer Daiwa said, that it stands on its outperformer rating following the automaker’s investor day earlier this week. The company also increased its price target on the stock to $218 per share from $200. “At current valuations, we see a favorable risk/reward ratio ahead of several catalysts such as Cybertruck, Semi and lower-cost EVs. Our Outperform rating reflects Tesla’s unique position as a cost and technology leader with the highest amount of EV capacity to meet demand.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Eaton as top pick Morgan Stanley said it sees multiple cyclical growth drivers for the multinational energy management company.” Mixed cyclical signals keep us focused on high growth visibility, with ETN remaining our top pick.” JPMorgan upgrades Kroger to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said it sees an attractive risk/reward tradeoff for the food company. “We upgrade KR shares from Neutral up to Overweight as we believe the risk/reward tradeoff is now favorable.” JPMorgan upgrades Procter & Gamble to Overweight from neutral. “We upgrade Procter & Gamble (PG) to Overweight from neutral as we now believe that the consensus estimates will last until the end of 2023 or he 1HFY24 are low, a more positive setup compared to our downgrade from PG to Neutral about a year ago.” Read more about this call here. Wells Fargo reiterates UPS as overweight Wells Fargo said the shipping giant’s shares were “undervalued.” “We remain buyers of UPS as we look beyond 2023 and the earnings opportunity into 2024. In 2023, UPS faces both earnings and sentiment headwinds. However, as the year progresses, the focus will shift to 2024, where we see a case for ~20%. EPS Growth.” Read more about this call here. Jefferies Upgrades Marathon Petroleum to Buy from Hold Jefferies said it is bullish on the energy company’s shareholder returns. “We downgrade MPC to Buy with a price target of High $157 Our rating is based on margin capture increasing to the high ~90% from the previous average of ~90% MPLX’s strong FCF generation, cash balance and distribution gives us confidence in MPC’s ability throughout the cycle return capital to shareholders.” Goldman Sachs reiterates Costco as Buy Goldman said it is sticking with shares of the big retailer following its earnings report on Thursday. “We remain confident that COST’s value proposition will continue to resonate with consumers, while the company’s size and limited SKU model allows it to manage cost pressures. We reiterate our Buy rating with an updated 12-month price target of $538.” Morgan Stanley calls Eli Lilly a catalyst-driven idea Morgan Stanley calls Eli Lilly a catalyst-driven idea and said the stock is likely to contribute to a likely positive outcome from upcoming studies “Leveraged” anti-obesity drugs. “Data for Novo’s landmark obesity outcomes study SELECT is expected around mid-2023. … .Novo is conducting the Ph3-SELECT study evaluating the ability of Wegovy (injectable GLP-1 drug) to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in people with obesity.” Goldman Sachs Adds Rio Tinto to Buy List for Convictions on Goldman has placed the metals and mining company on its Conviction buy list, saying it has an attractive valuation.”We have a Buy rating on RIO and are adding to CL due to: (1) a compelling relative valuation in the compared to peers.” Goldman Sachs Suspends Silvergate Rating Goldman downgraded its rating on the crypto banking firm to “Unrated,” saying it doesn’t have enough information on the stock suspended our earnings estimates for Silvergate Capital Corp due to insufficient information on which to base an investment opinion t.” HSBC names Ferrari top pick HSBC said Ferrari is one of the company’s best car picks and has earnings momentum. “Our preference is split between long-term value creation and near-term positive earnings momentum.”
