Here are Tuesday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Stephens initiates Valvoline as overweight Stephens said the automotive retailer is well positioned. “We are initiating coverage on Valvoline Inc . With an Overweight rating and a $49 price target.” Evercore ISI adds a tactical outperform on Alphabet Evercore said it’s bullish heading into earnings later this month. “With GOOGL, we see a stock that has underperformed intra-quarter, with relatively modest Street expectations for Q3 Search (1% Q/Q), YouTube (3%), and Cloud revenue, as well as overall Operating Margins.” Wells Fargo reiterates Tesla as underweight and Rivian as equal weight Wells said it’s cautious on both EV stocks. ” TSLA & RIVN both reported disappointing Q3 deliveries. TSLA will likely keep using aggressive finance promos globally to keep volumes up. We est. the Q3 promotions are equivalent to ~8% lower effective px cut. We expect both to miss Q3 estimates.” Berenberg initiates Cadence Design and Synopsys as buy Berenberg said it’s bullish on the semiconductor design solutions companies. ” Synopsys and Cadence Design (Cadence) are the largest semiconductor design solutions providers in the world, and their solutions are used exclusively and extensively in the product development stages of the semiconductor lifecycle.” Wedbush reiterates Netflix as outperform Wedbush raised its price target on the stock to $775 per share from $725 “We think Netflix is positioned to accelerate ad tier revenue contribution into year-end and 2025 as it improves its advertising solutions and targeting, utilizes new partnerships, and adds more live events.” Evercore ISI reiterates Nvidia as a top pick Evercore ISI said Nvidia remains a favorite idea at the firm. “We continue to highlight NVDA , MRVL, AVGO, AMD and ALAB as top picks heading into earnings.” Citi upgrades Consolidated Edison to buy from neutral Citi said the utility company is “levered to weakness in datacenter exposed regulated utilities.” “Counterintuitive to popular perception, ConEd’s story is levered to weakness in datacenter exposed regulated utilities based on calculations that regulators use to determine company earnings and ROEs.” Mizuho upgrades Duke Energy to outperform from neutral Mizuho said investors should buy the dip in the energy company. “We are upgrading DUK to Outperform from Neutral, and view the selloff related to the recent storms in the Southeast as a great buying opportunity.” Barclays upgrades Doximity to overweight from equal weight Barclays said it sees growth potential for the online networking services provider for medical professionals. “We are upgrading DOCS to OW and raise our PT to $52 as we believe shares do not reflect the scale growth opportunity from the company’s expansion into self-service ad sales.” Goldman Sachs downgrades Etsy to sell from neutral Goldman said it sees share losses for Etsy. “We downgrade ETSY to Sell with a revised $45 PT (from Neutral, $70 prior) as we continue to see risk to Street estimates given low visibility on GMS [gross margin sales], the potential for Etsy’s share losses to persist over time (vs. Global ex-China eCommerce), and the risk of margin compression in 2025.” Read more about this call here. RBC downgrades Mobileye to sector perform from outperform RBC said it sees too many negative catalysts for the autonomous auto supplier. “The concern for us, however, is that given large ’24 guidance cuts coming out of BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Stellantis in just the past few weeks, and cautious commentary coming from other OEMs, [original equipment manufacturers] we think it less likely that there will be MBLY win announcements near term.” RBC downgrades Enphase Energy to sector perform from outperform RBC said it sees rising competition for the solar energy company. “We downgrade ENPH to Sector Perform from Outperform, reflecting a revised valuation methodology and competitive market dynamics (see our market share report here) that we believe will result in a slower pace of growth next year not reflected in current consensus estimates.” BTIG initiates DHT Holdings as buy BTIG said it’s bullish on the crude tanker company. “We initiate coverage of DHT with a Buy rating, adding a VLCC [very large crude carrier] pure play (largest tanker class) to our tanker coverage that is 1) positioned to take advantage of what we expect to be a multi-year upcycle and 2) allows investors to participate in the upcycle through an attractive dividend.” Morgan Stanley reiterates McDonald’s as overweight Morgan Stanley raised its price target on McDonald’s to $340 per share from $296. “Trimming 2H and a bit more tactically cautious here, though ’25 largely similar, and we still see US momentum in ’25.” Goldman Sachs reiterates Amazon as buy Goldman said it’s sticking with its buy rating ahead of earnings later this month. “We maintain our long-term view that Amazon will produce a solid mixture of consolidated revenue growth and operating margin expansion on a multi-year view while also making critical investments in long-term growth initiatives.” TD Cowen upgrades SM Energy to buy from hold TD Cowen said the energy company has “multiple resource catalysts.” “We upgrade SM to Buy from Hold with a $60/shr PT from $64/shr prior owing to lower commodity prices.” Wedbush upgrading Advance Auto Parts to outperform from neutral Wedbush said it sees “deep value” for shares of the auto parts retailer. “Combined with very attractive valuation and extremely negative sentiment, this leads us to upgrade our rating on AAP to OUTPERFORM.” BMO downgrades AIG to market perform from outperform BMO said in its downgrade of the insurer that it sees “pricing still ‘soft’ in the large-employer market.” “Given our viewpoint that soft-market conditions persist in the near term, we are lowering our 2025 and 2026 EPS estimate run-rate for AIG by ~2%, driven by higher/worse underlying loss ratios in North America and International Commercial.” Barclays initiates Bruker as overweight Barclays said it’s bullish on the analytical biotech solutions company. ” BRKR management has been on an acquisition spree over the past two years, ultimately reshaping the portfolio around a more multi-omics approach to research.” Goldman Sachs reiterates Adobe as buy The firm said it sees “growth tailwinds” after attending the company’s Adobe MAX conference. “We reiterate our Buy rating and $640 Price Target after attending Adobe MAX 2024. We leave the conference increasingly confident in Adobe’s ability to rapidly innovate and deliver meaningful productivity boosts to users with AI and collaboration innovations, thus driving long-term sustainable user growth, higher retention, and pricing leverage.” Citi initiates Constellation Energy as neutral Citi said it’s cautious on a delayed start to the company’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant. “We initiate with a cautious view of CEG based on thesis of 1) colocation/ behind-the-meter power deal execution may disappoint Street expectations, 2) Crane (Three Mile Island) will restart but on a delayed schedule, but 3) FCF outlook has derisked downside and uncapped upside tied to power prices and commercial activity.”
