Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:
Intel — Shares of Intel were upgraded to "buy" from "neutral" at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Merrill also raised its price target on Intel to $60 from $52. "Trading at just 10x PE, the stock provides attractive exposure to growth trends in cloud computing, A.I., advanced autos, and 5G, with potentially improved data center focus," Merrill said.
Netflix — Goldman Sachs added Netflix to its "conviction buy" list, calling it "one of the best risk/reward propositions in the Internet sector." Goldman also said, "We continue to believe Netflix's investment in content, technology and distribution will continue to drive subscriber growth well above consensus expectations both in the U.S. and internationally."
Square — The payments company announced it has hired Amrita Ahuja as its new CFO. Ahuja will start on her new job later this month. Ahuja currently works as the CFO at Blizzard Entertainment, an Activision Blizzard division.
United Technologies — RBC downgraded the Dow member to "sector perform" from "outperform," citing limited upside moving forward. "While there is still an attractive ~15% implied value to be unlocked, the shares could stay range-bound until we approach the mid/late-2020 spin transactions," RBC said in a note.
Southwest Airlines —Southwest founder and chairman emeritus Herbert Kelleher died at the age of 87, the company announced Thursday. Kelleher founded Southwest in 1967.
Skyworks Solutions — Nomura Instinet downgraded Skyworks to "neutral" from "buy" and slashed its price target to $70 a share from $100. "We now see macro/trade uncertainty and weak unit demand at the company's largest customers (Apple, China Inc.) as headwinds to growth" in 2019, Nomura said.
Tesla — The electric car maker said it plans to start delivering the Model 3 to its China customers in March. Tesla shares rose more than 2 percent in the premarket.
Regeneron — The pharmaceutical company's stock was upgraded to buy from neutral at Guggenheim Partners. An analyst at Guggenheim said worries about competition around Eylea — one of its best-selling treatments — may be overstated.
—CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.