Here are Wednesday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Piper Sandler upgrades SmartFinancial to overweight from neutral Piper said the insurance company is a beneficiary of declining interest rates. “Additionally, SMBK is liability-sensitive at its core and should benefit relative to peers if/when rates decline.” Bernstein reiterates Tesla as underperform Bernstein said it still sees minimal positive catalysts ahead for Tesla following earnings on Tuesday. “We struggle with why Tesla needs a discrete robo-taxi offering, and we believe widespread deployment of FSD [full self driving] is 5 – 10 years away, and that FSD will not necessarily be a winner take all market. While Musk encourages all investors to try the current version of FSD, our first-hand experience with the offering reveals everyday shortfalls.” Mizuho upgrades Airbnb to buy from neutral Mizuho said it sees a slew of positive catalysts ahead for the vacation rental company. “Our deep dive into ABNB’ s key metrics led us to identify three drivers for our upgrade: (1) We expect the potential launch of sponsored listings to generate double-digit EBITDA upside long-term; (2) We believe FY24E consensus room night growth has been de-risked, leaving limited downside concerns.” KBW upgrades Globe Life to outperform from market perform KBW said investors should buy the dip in shares of the financial services company. “Although GL has partly recovered from its lows, the stock is still down -40% over the past 6 weeks from a DOJ subpoena over agent sales practices and a short report alleging wider spread fraud.” Bank of America upgrades Tesla to buy from neutral Bank of America said it sees a slew of “positive catalysts” ahead for Tesla shares following earnings on Tuesday. “Tesla’s 1Q:24 results were better than expected which, coupled with management commentary, addressed key concerns heading into the quarter and revitalized the growth narrative. Additionally, a positive catalyst path is building.” Wells Fargo upgrades Packaging Corporation of America to overweight from equal weight Wells said the packaging company is a standout. “We believe PKG stands to outperform peers, many of whom are undergoing transatlantic mega mergers.” Citi downgrades Molson Coors to sell from neutral Citi said it’s concerned about slowing growth. “While TAP has sounded bullish on Q1 trends (still on normal comps) and spring shelf space resets, we believe cycling a record topline/profit year (TAP indicated it realized six years of profit growth in 2023) could be extremely difficult.” Oppenheimer names Domino’s a top pick Oppenheimer said it’s bullish on the stock heading into earnings next week. “We reinforce DPZ as one of our ‘top picks’ after updating our analysis into 1Q24 results (on 4/29). We believe the model’s unique SSS catalysts hold a multi-quarter path for additional upside, and could enable stand-out traffic vs. peers.” Deutsche Bank upgrades MSCI to buy from hold Deutsche said it sees a “compelling entry point” for shares of the global investment tools for financial professionals company. ” MSCI’s print was disappointing mainly due to unexpectedly high cancellations inclusive of impact from Swiss banks’ merger.” Citi upgrades SiriusXM to neutral from sell Citi said the risk/reward is now more balanced. “As such, we are upgrading SIRI from Sell to Neutral and downgrading LSXMA from Buy to Neutral.” KeyBanc initiates Super Micro as sector weight Key initiated Super Micro Computer with an equal weight rating mainly on valuation. “Customers of Super Micro include AI-infrastructure leaders such as CoreWeave, Tesla, Meta, X, and Nutanix.” Loop upgrades Sea Limited to buy from hold Loop said in its upgrade of the Singapore-based tech conglomerate that “sustainable profitable growth” is finally underway for Sea Limited. “The recent announcement of a commission rate increase by the combined TikTok-Tokopedia, its first move since merging to satisfy Indonesian regulators, has sparked a revaluation in the stock. In our view, this signals that the shift to sustained profitable growth is finally underway and serves as a significant catalyst for revaluation of the stock.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Walmart as overweight Morgan Stanley said it’s sticking with its overweight rating on the stock and that the “fintech flywheel [is] spinning.” “WMT’s majority-owned fintech JV, ‘One,’ is expanding into BNPL. While likely an immaterial standalone revenue/profit contribution to WMT, this is critical to driving the ‘Flywheel’ and increasing customer engagement/retention.” Citi reiterates Amazon as buy Citi raised its price target on the stock to $235 per share from $215. “While on AWS, demand for new instances appears to be improving, led by GenAI, as optimizations wane. Amazon remains one of our top picks across the Internet sector and given greater OI [operating income] visibility amid strong top-line trends, we raise our TP to $235.” Redburn Atlantic Equities reiterates Disney as sell Redburn raised its price target on the stock to $100 per share from $82 but said it’s standing by its sell rating on Disney shares. “However, longer term expectations hinge on streaming with consensus currently expecting the unit to deliver three quarters of incremental OI [operating income] over the next four years.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Atlanta Braves as equal weight Morgan Stanley raised its price target on the holding company of the Atlanta Braves to $44 per share from $41. “Our BATRK PT increases to $44 as we update our forecast and reflect recent Forbes valuation for the Braves, up 8% from prior.” Guggenheim downgrades Enphase to sell from neutral Guggenheim said the solar company is overvalued following earnings on Tuesday. “We are downgrading our investment rating for ENPH from Neutral to Sell. As the process of excess channel inventory draw down proceeds, we think it’s going to become apparent that the market is overvaluing any reasonable recovery scenario for ENPH’s business.” Jefferies reiterates Microsoft as buy Jefferies said it’s bullish heading into earnings on Thursday. “We view MSFT better-positioned than most (AI & improving cloud trends) & are fans of LT consolidation story.”
