Here are Monday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Deutsche Bank reiterates Apple as buy Deutsche said in an earnings preview note to clients that Apple’s results should be solid when the company reports results later this week. “We expect F3Q (Jun) results to be largely in line with DB/Street estimates showing low single-digit growth y/y despite macro uncertainties continuing to challenge consumer spending.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Spotify as overweight Morgan Stanley lowered its price target on Spotify to $140 per share from $170, but said global streaming growth remains robust. “The path forward for outperformance is 1) continued healthy Premium subscriber growth, 2) 30%+ advertising growth led by podcasting, and 3) gross margin improvement into ’23. SPOT is unique in our coverage group in that the rising USD is a tail wind, as the company reports in Euro.” Wells Fargo reiterates Disney as overweight Wells lowered its price target on Disney to $130 per share from $153, but said the stock has “meaningful upside given where Netflix is trading.” “We remain DIS bulls and think upcoming catalysts include Disney+ net adds progressing ahead of investor expectations, as well as potentially launching ESPN+ fully a la carte. If we’re right, DTC within DIS has meaningful upside given where NFLX is trading.” Read more about this call here. MoffettNathanson upgrades Activision Blizzard to outperform from market perform Moffett said in its upgrade of the video game maker that it sees “strong rationale’ for why Microsoft’s deal for the company should close any day now. “Though we’d push back on the notion that Microsoft will be closing on Activision any day now, we do see strong rationale for why it ultimately should. With still a ~20% discount to the deal price, Activision shares represent an uncorrelated market opportunity that, in our view, is worth an upgrade. Susquehanna downgrades United Airlines to neutral from positive Susquehanna said it sees operating headwinds getting worse before improving. “When unpacking UAL’s ‘repackaged’ FY23 pretax margin guide, we believe that the operating headwinds outlined by UAL could get worse before they get better, with the potential for an economic slowdown into 2023 putting additional pressure on what we believe is an unrealistic FY23 ASM (average seat per mile) guide, and consensus estimates that are too high.” Read more about this call here. Loop upgrades WWE to buy from hold Loop said it sees a greater chance of the company being sold now that CEO Vince McMahon has stepped down. “We are upgrading WWE to Buy from Hold and Raising our PT to $90 from $59 based on a greater likelihood that the company is sold with Vince McMahon stepping down. WWE has been one of the best performing stocks, up 34% YTD (vs. S & P 500 -16%) as the value of sports rights continues to increase.” Oppenheimer reiterates Amazon as outperform Oppenheimer said it sees robust growth for Amazon Web Services ahead of the company’s earnings report later this week. “At 25x AWS ’23E EBIT and 10x Advertising ’22E EBITDA (assuming 65% margin), AMZN’s implied e-commerce business value is ~$30B. … We expect AWS to remain robust, growing 35%/33% during ’22/’23, respectively.” Barclays downgrades Lam Research to equal weight from overweight Barclays said it’s “way too early” to buy the dip in semi stocks. “We are not buyers of the recent bounce and think Semis are still in for a substantial reset (more Tech Bubble than Financial Crisis). We outline our updated Semi forecast, cut [Wafer Fab Equipment] estimates, and downgrade LRCX , CAMT, and OUST.” Read more about this call here. Morgan Stanley downgrades Snap to underweight from overweight Morgan Stanley double downgraded the stock after its disappointing earnings report last week and says there is too much uncertainty. ” SNAP’ s ad business is less developed (more branded and experimental dependent) than previously thought. This increases execution risk, TikTok ad dollar share loss risk, while we also head into a weakening macro world.” Read more about this call here. Oppenheimer reiterates McDonald’s as outperform Oppenheimer kept its outperform rating on the fast-food giant, noting that despite worsening FX headwinds, the stock is still an attractive investment case. ” MCD shares have outperformed year to date (-5% vs. peers -20%) owing to its defensive characteristics and unwavering fundamental outlook. Following our updated analysis into 2Q22 results (7/26 report), we reduce EPS through ’23E by $0.22-0.26 to more accurately reflect worsened FX headwinds.” Seaport upgrades AutoNation to buy from neutral Seaport said in its upgrade of the used auto dealership company that shares are “too compelling” to ignore. “However, given our view of a (further) prolonged outsized earnings cycle, industry sales that are already at recessionary levels, deep pent-up demand, sparse inventories, extremely depressed valuation/deep double-digit cash flow yield, and our confidence in new CEO Manley, we find AN shares too compelling NOT to upgrade.” Raymond James upgrades Travelers to strong buy from outperform Raymond James said the insurance stock’s valuation is attractive. “The stock has outperformed YTD, down 0.01% compared with the S & P 500 (-16.9%) and the Dow 30 (-12.2%). We believe TRV could be positioned to continue outperforming.” Bank of America reiterates Meta Platforms as buy Bank of America said in its earnings preview note of the company formerly known as Facebook that the bar has been reset lower after Snap’s disappointing earnings report last week. “Post Snap results, on 7/22 Meta traded down 8% (vs. S & P down 1%) as Snap suggested an ad spend slowdown in many industry verticals, with further decel. in 3Q. We think post Snap, Meta’s 2Q rev expectations could be around $28.5bn.” Morgan Stanley names JD.com a catalyst-driven idea Morgan Stanley named the China e-commerce company as a catalyst-driven idea and said it’s particularly bullish heading into earnings in August. “We think its 3Q22 revenue growth guidance could be the next share price catalyst. We expect JD’s 3Q22 revenue growth to accelerate from June’s level, which should give the market more confidence in its growth in 2H22.”
