Here are Thursday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Piper Sandler downgrades G-III to neutral from overweight Piper said in its downgrade of the apparel company that it has limited visibility. “GIII’s unexpected loss of the PVH licenses (transitional agreement, licenses extended 2025-2027) limits visibility, and we downgrade to Neutral.” Barclays upgrades Pentair to overweight from equal weight Barclays said shares of the water treatment company are cheap. “We think near-term numbers will be weak amid steep volume declines in Consumer, but the normalization of ‘from home’ activity is largely complete, and the PNR valuation embeds no improvement at any point in top-line trends in 2023. The stock remains very cheap in light of its high margins, and any relief on US rates will likely cause the multiple to expand.” Bank of America reiterates Chipotle as buy Bank of America said Chipotle has “steady state earnings power.” “While CMG has recently pursued a strategy of steady price increases over time, the prior management team used large, lumpy price increases. This strategy was the suboptimal in our view, but it did have the benefit of providing several historical periods of relatively high pricing to analyze.” Morgan Stanley downgrades Capital One and Ally Financial to underweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its downgrade of Capital One and Ally Financial that it sees “significant risk” for both stocks. “Our view on Consumer Finance is now Cautious. While stock PEs look cheap relative to history, there is significant risk to 2023 EPS, in particular from higher reserve builds.” Read more about this call here. Piper Sandler reiterates Apple as overweight Piper said it’s sticking with the tech giant and that it remains a “formidable” brand. “We believe that Apple remains a formidable brand and reiterate Overweight despite our temporary reduction from unforeseen events.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Tesla as overweight Morgan Stanley said it’s standing by its overweight rating on Tesla but is concerned 2023 could be a disappointing year in general for electric vehicles. “We think FY23 is shaping up to be a disappointing year for EVs. A combination of slowing demand and rising supply can have an adverse impact on returns across the EV value chain.” Morgan Stanley initiates Vizio as equal weight Morgan Stanley said it’s concerned the television tech company lacks scale to keep up with bigger competitors. “We believe Vizio is still early in its monetization, suggesting strong revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in the years ahead.” Citi initiates GoodRx as buy Citi said the telemedicine platform company is an “incumbent disrupter.” “In our view, GDRX will continue to serve a vital role in bringing transparency/consumerism to a historically unshoppable market.” Read more about this call here. Deutsche Bank initiates NeoGames as buy Deutsche said the iLottery solutions company has a “unique growth story.” “NGMS in a Favorable Niche of iGaming, with iLottery & iCasino Exposure.” Cowen reiterates Amazon as outperform Cowen said it sees “margin upside” for shares of Amazon. “Amazon has several drivers that should yield robust global revenue growth with rising margins the next several years, namely (i) further B2C eCommerce market share gains in large retail verticals; (ii) emerging eCommerce verticals like B2B; (iii) significant opportunity in existing and newer international markets like India, Mexico, and Australia.” Cowen names United Airlines as a top 2023 pick Cowen said the airline company is a “star performer.” “We are staying with United Airlines as our top pick for 2023. It has been a star performer in 2022, significantly outperforming the S & P 500 and NYSE ARCA Airline indexes YTD.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Salesforce as overweight Morgan Stanley said it’s standing by shares of Salesforce after the company’s disappointing earnings report on Wednesday. “A significantly larger drop in top-line growth vs peers begs the question of whether Salesforce is seeing pressures beyond the macro.” Bank of America reiterates Honeywell as buy Bank of America said it sees “material growth opportunities” for shares of Honeywell. “UOP, HON’s catalyst and technology business, represents ~7% of total revenues and has long been considered one of the company’s crown jewels.” Citi reiterates McDonald’s as neutral Citi said it is concerned about underappreciated macro risks. “We continue to believe that (a) macro risks in Europe/ MCD’s IOM (intl. operated markets) segment are underappreciated by a market that is more focused on US momentum, and (b) negative IOM SSS revisions would require meaningful US SSS upside on already high expectations.” Citi downgrades SiriusXM to sell from buy Citi said shares of the satellite radio company look “less attractive.” “We suspect higher leverage at SIRI will prompt investors to migrate from a leveraged FCF multiple to an EV-EBITDA multiple as their primary valuation metric.” JPMorgan downgrades Victoria’s Secret to neutral from overweight JPMorgan said it is concerned about a deteriorating macro. “While VSCO is the leading market share player in US lingerie (~20% share) and women’s mass fragrance (~30% share) categories, and has outlined structural cost reductions of ~$250M over the next 3-yrs – top-line growth & gross profit dollars have declined sequentially tied to an increasingly cautious macro-economic backdrop.” Read more about this call here. Janney initiates Sunnova as buy Janney said it sees a long-term growth opportunity for the solar company. ” Sunnova is a US residential solar installer with over ~250K customers deployed and currently serves customers in 56 US states and territories. We expect NOVA’s customer counts will grow nicely above public peers for the next several years with cumulative customers growing 44%, 42% , and 36% in 2022-2024.” Oppenheimer reiterates Costco as outperform Oppenheimer removed the stock from its top picks list, but said it’s standing by shares after the company released its sales report on Wednesday. “As we await a full reset of Street figures, and given potentially lingering big ticket headwinds, we are removing COST from top pick status. For longer-term players, we would continue to take advantage of dips in COST shares.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Snowflake as overweight Morgan Stanley said investors should stick with shares of Snowflake for the long-term after its earnings report on Wednesday. “Despite 67% product rev growth in Q3, slowing consumption patterns in Oct resulted in 4Q guidance below cons. However, strong customer adds, rapidly improving FCF margins and de-risked FY24 outlook keep us OW on a story that is likely one of the first to re-accelerate coming out of the downturn.” Goldman Sachs initiates Altimmune as buy Goldman said the biotech company has “blockbuster” revenue potential. “Altimmune is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing therapeutics for various metabolic diseases.” Read more about this call here. Morgan Stanley upgrades Tencent Music Entertainment to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its upgrade of the China music entertainment company that it sees “sustainable growth” for Tencent Music. “From 2023, we see incremental profit from the music segment more than offsetting the social segment’s decline, leading to a sustainable > 10% EPS 2022-24E CAGR. At 14x 2023 P/E and 9% FCFF yield with recurring capital return, we upgrade to OW.”
