Here are Friday’s biggest calls on Wall Street. Bank of America downgrades SoFi Technologies to neutral from buy The downgrade follows SoFi’ s recent rally. “While we agree the payment moratorium expiry is a positive, we now see the positive fundamental aspects of the story as largely priced in.” Read more on the call here . BTIG initiates Shift4 Payments at buy “We see FOUR as a resilient compounder that will maintain a best-in-class growth profile for years to come.” Jefferies initiates LendingClub at buy Analyst John Hecht says LendingClub is a fintech first mover with catalysts ahead. “We are initiating coverage of LendingClub (LC) with a BUY rating and PT of $13.50. LC is an early mover in the Fintech space with a deep operating history, bank charter, and a tech-enabled lending platform.” Morgan Stanley switches top pick to Nvidia from Advanced Micro Devices The Wall Street firm said Nvidia is the way to go to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. “Making NVDA our top pick, reflecting significant potential for near term upside — as the only company likely beating and raising due to AI in CY23.” Read more on the call here . Bank of America hikes Meta’s price target to $320, reiterates buy The Wall Street firm continues to be bullish on the social media firm. “We continue to expect Meta to reaccelerate growth in 2023 faster than peers given lapping IDFA comps, ramping Reels and messaging monetization, increasing adoption of Advantage+ products and advertiser preference for core platforms.” Jefferies initiates coverage of Atlanticus with buy Analyst John Hecht said the stock is at an “attractive entry point.” “We initiate coverage of ATLC with a Buy and $50 price target. ATLC has superior growth prospects on multiple fronts, including nonprime general-purpose and private-label credit cards, auto and healthcare finance.” UBS initiates Aritzia as buy Analyst Mauricio Serna said Aritzia is an “attractive Softlines growth story.” “We think ATZ’s investments in differentiated store concepts, increasing relevance among consumers, diversified product assortment, and focus on in-store experience will drive 3-4% comp sales growth. We think the market is too concerned on near-term margin pressures and does not appreciate the cost re-leverage opportunity post CY23E. We forecast a 14% 5-yr. EPS CAGR and believe this will catalyze P/E expansion to 18x from current 14x. Our C$51 Price Target is 39% above the current stock price and we see close to 3:1 upside/downside skew.” UBS upgrades AutoZone to buy from neutral Analyst Michael Lasser raised the price target to $2,900 from $2,800. He said the opportunity “appears mispriced.” “We upgrade AZO from Neutral to Buy as we think the current valuation has created an attractive buying opportunity. The multiple has compressed in response to the perception that AZO’s commercial prospects have dimmed and the fear that the sector will see more price competition. As AZO shows evidence that it can successfully navigate through these risks, we believe its shares could rally.” Bank of America upgrades West Pharmaceutical Services to buy from neutral “In our deep-dive GLP-1 companion note (linked here), we looked at the opportunity for companies that produce key components (seals, plungers, and cartridges) for these injectable drug delivery devices, in particular West Pharmaceutical Services (WST ) and Stevanato Group (STVN). Overall, we see GLP-1s as a meaningful near-tern driver and raise our ests and POs for both STVN (to $35) and WST (to $405), and upgrade WST to Buy from Neutral.” Bank of America moves Carvana to no rating from neutral The bank said it’s still cautious on Carvana even after after its improved guidance. “While the improved guidance is encouraging, we remain cautious due to the immense debt-burden ($6bn+) the company faces. We note that the company would need to achieve ~$150mn in EBITDA each quarter, just to break even on interest payments alone. We believe that Carvana must undergo extraordinary measures to prevent the drying up of easily accessible cash by the end of 2023.” Wells Fargo initiates MorphoSys AG with overweight The firm set a $17 price target on the stock. “Once in a while you can find deep value in SMID biotech, and we like MOR for this reason. With an EV of ~$400MM, a de-risked Ph3 read out for pelabresib in 4Q23, and ~$1B in peak sales potential—this is a compelling story to us.” Wells Fargo initiates Neogen Corporation with overweight, and $22 price target Wells said it liked the company’s improving margins. “NEOG is a pure-play food security company serving discrete long-tail growth markets, across the food supply chain. We are recommending Neogen fresh off a major acquisition w/ an underappreciated self-help margin story. Initiate OW, PT $22.” Wells Fargo initiates Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. at overweight, $550 price target Wells said Bio-Rad’s valuation is attractive at current levels. “We are recommending Bio-Rad , given its attractive valuation, opportunity to close operating margin gap relative to peers, and achievable long-term growth CAGR guidance.” Piper Sandler lowers SoFi Technologies to neutral from overweight Piper cited valuation as its main reason for the downgrade. “We are lowering our rating on SOFI to Neutral from Overweight and adjusting our price target to $8 from $6.50. The change in our rating is primarily due to valuation. SOFI is up 107% YTD compared to consumer lending peers +15% on average and a basket of fintech stocks down ~10%.” TD Cowen downgrades Bausch Health Companies to market perform “BHC appears fairly valued based primarily on its ~90% stake in BLCO. There is upside to full separation, but that is at risk. Xifaxan is critical to enabling the spin and to BHC value, but its LOE date may remain uncertain for years. Debt puts solvency in doubt and hampers the ability to prepare for this LOE. The existing pipeline is therefore critical but somewhat lacking. Price target to $12.” —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on CNBC
