Morgan Stanley said it supports an overweight valuation of Apple stock ahead of its February 2nd earnings report. As a top pick. “Telsey is well positioned for the e-commerce giant to gain market share,” he reiterates, outpacing Amazon, as Telsey said. “Overall, Amazon should continue to leverage its robust Prime membership base, small business relationships, technological advantages and retail integration to continue to capture market share,” Bernstein said. Bernstein said he was “ambivalent” about stocks heading to earnings next month. “We are ambivalent about the stock and ultimately believe that AAPL’s risk and reward are neutral to slightly negative.” Loop Begins Acquisition of GlobalFoundries Loop Begins Acquisitions of Semiconductor Makers He said it is well positioned to benefit from growth in the automotive and smart device markets. “We kick off GlobalFoundries coverage with our BUY assessment. GFS will continue to grow from long-term growth in major end markets of semi-finished products (automotive, IoT, DC, smart devices), backed by purpose-built technology. We believe we are ideally positioned to profit.” JP Morgan launches Okta, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, JP Morgan launches several cybersecurity firms on Tuesday, “Cybersecurity market Accelerating tailwinds within are driving demand.” “We are starting to overweight PANW, FTNT, CRWD, S, and OKTA, underweight VRNS and QLYS, and neutralize CYBR, TENB, ZS, CHKP, RPD, and NABL in the security software industry.” KeyBanc Upgrades Lyft From Sector Weight To Overweight We see significant opportunities to improve.” Learn more about this call here. Bernstein said he was concerned about the deterioration of the PC market and downgraded his Micro’s performance from Outperforming to Market Performing. “And our belief that AMD would prove relatively tolerant of channel degradation has unfortunately turned out to be incorrect. Over the past few months, we’ve seen market outlook and recent Intel’s Considering both exacerbated by semi-disruptive behavior, they’re becoming more vigilant about potential PC dynamics: they’re using both price and capacity as strategic weapons, and the industry’s We continue to overship even amid the widespread collapse.” Learn more about this call here. Oppenheimer starts Target as they outperformed him. “Long-term, the company will focus on digital initiatives, store investments, merchandising success with exclusive brands, competitor liquidation over time, partnerships with other brands/retailers, and food We are confident that the traction from our product initiatives will allow us to continue to gain share.” UBS downgraded Sealed Air from purchase to neutral, saying UBS sees the company’s growth as weak. “We downgrade SEE to Neutral and adjust our estimates due to the expected slowdown in market growth and slow recovery of automation.” JP Morgan upgrades Blackstone from Neutral to Overweight He said the company was “best in class.” “Retail franchises remain intact and have stronger growth potential over the medium term. Real estate franchises perform well and are expected to grow even as the asset class declines in popularity. Insurance is a revenue tier. / Investments in credit and real estate debt have grown earnings over the years.” Atlantic Equities repeats Warner Bros. Discovery, Atlantic Equities gains 80% share price “Cord-cutting is definitely accelerating, and it’s estimated that US pay-TV subscribers are now declining at a rate of 7% annually. We believe this can be partially offset by Warner Bros. Discovery, which is negotiating new carriage contracts.” “Despite Bitcoin’s rise, retail investors continue to shy away from cryptocurrencies.” “Take rates were 50-100 times higher than institutional investors, and retail transaction revenue accounted for 83% of COIN’s total revenue in 2021.” UBS names BJ’s, Costco and Walmart as top contenders for 2023. UBS said it expects “non-traditional channels to overtake supermarkets in the next year.” “Both BJ and COST have recently seen record membership renewals and premium membership penetration, suggesting that customers are drawn to their products to maximize their spending power. In addition, COST will soon have a membership fee increase and BJ will traditionally stay at the forefront of this for a year.With WMT’s investment in fresh quality, own brand and price, the Morgan Stanley upgrades Marathon Oil to Overweight from Neutral Morgan Stanley says Marathon Oil has “peer-leading FCF and shareholder returns” said. “The increase from the recently closed Ensign transaction will help offset some of the impact of lower commodity prices, supporting industry-leading FCF and shareholder returns.” Baird shifts peloton from overweight to neutral Rating Downgrade Baird said it took a more cautious view on the stock downgrade. “PTON will find it very difficult to pull back significantly from its early 2021 highs, with front-loading demand and poor execution becoming more evident.” Bernstein downgrades lululemon from market performance After underperforming, Bernstein said the downgrade for Lululemon meant a “reset” for the company. “Now, with no more demand, a more cautious consumer outlook and negative margins, we expect revenue growth to slow significantly and multiples to follow suit.” Learn more about this call. Please see here for more information. Piper Sandler reiterated Tesla’s overweight, Piper said, indicating that Tesla’s delivery wait times have not improved significantly. “It should be noted that there was a slight increase in wait times over the weekend in Germany. This was the first increase in months, but beyond this, we did not see any significant change in wait times.” Morgan Stanley reiterated that Ford was overweight, as he said he saw opportunities to “stretch himself”. “Due to worsening automotive industry conditions in 2023 (lower price/mix, higher interest rates, investments in unrealized technology), we will reconsider our ability to fund projects with structural costs and losses. Wells Fargo repeatedly stressed Disney, saying Wells liked what Disney set up to profit on Feb. 8. Stock prices go up. Wells Fargo launched Chipotle and Starbucks, with Wells saying both stocks are leveraging toward recovery. “Our SBUX ests outperform the streets through 2025 on the back of increased domestic office return, NT China recovery and undervalued white space. is up and P/E is -30% historically.The growth levers and traffic concerns for LT are exaggerated.” Learn more about this call here.