Here are Wall Street’s biggest calls on Thursday: Needham reiterates Apple as buy Needham said it’s standing by shares of Apple, but lowered its estimates on the stock due to supply chain and demand concerns. “We lower our estimates for 1Q23 and FY23, owing to weak macro global consumer demand trends, supply-chain shortages, and growing geopolitical pressures between the US and China which lead to weak iPhone demand in China (about 20% of AAPL’s revs historically) during FY23.” Wedbush initiates Getty Images as outperform Wedbush said in its initiation of the media stock images supplier that Getty will continue to gain market share. “We believe that our valuation multiple is warranted given a history of strong execution and a compelling and consistent profit profile. We see opportunities to gain market share within agency, corporate, and media budgets given the comprehensive nature of the content library, the customization inherent in its subscriptions, and the utility provided by its platforms.” Evercore ISI initiates American Express Global Business Travel Group as outperform Evercore initiated the corporate travel business company with an outperform rating and said it’s a beneficiary of corporate travel recovery. “We’re initiating coverage of American Express Global Business Travel Group with an Outperform rating and $8.00 price target. AmEx GBT is the leading business to business travel management platform, providing software and services to manage travel, expenses, and events for corporate travel. ” Piper Sandler names Dollar General, Planet Fitness and Yeti as top 2023 picks Piper named Dollar General, Planet Fitness and Yeti as top picks for next year and said it likes stocks that have “recession-resilient” models. “We lean toward both recession-resilient growth stocks with company specific drivers as well as opportunistic, non-consensus stock ideas with either discounted valuation or idiosyncratic business drivers. Our 5 favorite names entering 2023 are: DG, PLNT, YETI, DRVN, & BOOT.” Piper Sandler names SolarEdge and First Solar as top 2023 picks Piper names SolarEdge and First Solar as top ideas heading into next year and says “renewable development is poised to materially accelerate.” “Due to the passage of the IRA into law and the global energy crisis spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the pace of renewable development is poised to materially accelerate over the coming decade.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Tesla as overweight Morgan Stanley said it sees a “buying opportunity” for shares of Tesla. “As the ‘ambassador’ of EVs, Tesla’s valuation raises questions for investment returns and capital formation across the sector. Is it time to consider alternative technological paths in addition to EVs? We view this as a buying opportunity.” Canaccord reiterates Tesla as buy Canaccord lowered its price target on Tesla shares, but said patient investors will be rewarded over the long term. “We are adjusting our estimates and price target to $275 (from $304) but — with the current pressure and some patience — trust this holiday coal will turn into a long-term performance diamond.” Piper Sandler reiterates Tesla as overweight Piper said Tesla could become a key ESG holding. “Tesla could become a core ESG holding – especially if Elon Musk’s influence begins to wane.” Needham reiterates Amazon as buy Needham said it’s standing by its buy rating on the stock but that investors need to see more pricing power from the e-commerce giant. “Is AMZN in a lousy business or do they do a lousy job running it? AMZN states that they are focused on cost-cutting. We don’t object. However, investors also want AMZN to demonstrate upside pricing power in 2023, since cost -cutting has limits to driving valuation upside.” Read more about this call here. Needham reiterates Alphabet as buy Needham lowered its price target on the stock to $115 from $160, but said its moats are “deep and wide.” “We believe that GOOGL is a globally scaled internet platform that benefits from winner-take-most economics. Its moats are deep and wide, buttressed by powerful data network effects that create a flywheel of more searches that improve each sequential search.” Needham reiterates Netflix as hold Needham said it’s concerned about sub-par subscriber growth heading into 2023. ” NFLX’s peak subs may be behind it, because churn is rising for all OTT (over the top).” MKM reiterates Imax as buy MKM named the big screen movie company a top pick for 2023 and said it sees “expanding market share.” “IMAX remains our top idea among exhibition-industry-related companies as a result of its blockbuster focus, its expanding market share, a global footprint, and its asset-light business model.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Robinhood as equal weight Morgan Stanley said the stock trading company is “innovating” for customers. “We recently spent time with HOOD’s CFO, Jason Warnick, as well as Chris Koegel, Head of Investor Relations. We see HOOD innovating for customers at a steady clip to service the entire wallet, including invest, save, borrow, spend, and send Bank of America reiterates Generac as neutral Bank of America said the battery backup company is a key beneficiary of the cold weather occurring around the country. ” Generac’s core home standby (HSB) fossil fueled generator consumer pitch is to ‘prepare for winter power outages’ although the company cautions that its separate smaller portable product should never be run in rain, snow, or wet conditions.” Bernstein names Delta, America, United and Southwest as top 2023 picks Bernstein named several airlines on Thursday that it says have “upside” to earnings estimates for 2023. “Relative to consensus, we see the most upside in earnings estimates and AAL and UAL, and are more in line with DAL and LUV. ” Bank of America reiterates Palantir as buy Bank of America said the sell-off in shares is overdone. ” Palantir reached a new stock price low of $6.31 after an 8.5% decline so far this week. This comes amid increasing market concerns about software infrastructure spending heading into a recession, news articles criticizing the company’s unsuccessful SPAC investment strategy, and sell-side consensus downgrades.” Goldman Sachs reiterates Micron as buy Goldman said it’s standing by its buy rating on shares of the computer memory and data storage company, but that the “pace of pricing recovery [is] still uncertain.” “While we maintain our Buy rating on MU on favorable risk-reward, we acknowledge that Micron, along with its industry peers, will need to demonstrate sustained and consistent supply-side discipline for pricing to improve in 2HCY23 and for investors to once again believe that memory industry margins and FCF can grow on a through-cycle basis.” Read more about this call here. Morgan Stanley reiterates Wells Fargo as overweight Morgan Stanley said the banking giant is a top beneficiary of rate increases. ” WFC is one of the biggest beneficiaries of rising rates with a 50bp increase in Fed Funds driving a 6% increase in EPS.”
