Here are Thursday's biggest analyst calls of the day: Tesla, General Electric, Micron & more

Published Thu, Jan 23 20209:35 AM ESTUpdated Thu, Jan 23 20209:46 AM EST

Key Points

UBS resumed coverage of Tesla with a sell rating.
Morgan Stanley upgraded General Electric to overweight from equal weight.
Loop Capital downgraded Wayfair to hold from buy.
Piper Sandler raised its price target on Microsoft to $190 from $158.
Barclays upgraded L Brands to overweight from underweight.
Bank of America downgraded Dollar Tree to neutral from buy.
Morgan Stanley upgraded Micron and Western Digital to overweight from equal weight.
Bank of America downgraded BJ's Wholesale to neutral from buy.
UBS raised its price target on Nvidia to $300 from $240.

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday: UBS resumed coverage of Tesla as 'sell' UBS said it is sees Tesla as the original equipment manufacturer with the biggest long-term autonomous vehicle opportunity. "We take a more bullish fundamental view on Tesla' s technology and cost lead in hardware & software. We expect Tesla to reach 10% OP margin and generate $3-5bn annual FCF from 2022 onwards, based on known products and capacities. Also, we view Tesla as the original equipment manufacturer with the biggest long-term autonomous vehicles opportunity. We believe this justifies a market cap well above most incumbent OEMs. However, Tesla shares now discount 1.6m vehicles sold in 2025 at 11% OP margin, after doubling in value since Q3 results." Read more about this call here . Morgan Stanley upgraded General Electric to 'overweight' from 'equal weight' Morgan Stanley said it sees a "budding turnaround" in General Electric and that any disruption from Boeing's 737 Max will be temporary. "We view Aviation as a best-in-class franchise and the 737 MAX disruption as temporary. At the same time, tail risks from Power, pension, and Long-Term Care are declining. 2021 brings significant cash flow and strong improvement in risk/reward." Read more about this call here . Loop Capital downgraded Wayfair to 'hold' from 'buy' Loop downgraded the e-commerce company and said it see a "less favorable" environment for digital advertising. "We are lowering our rating from Buy to Hold and reducing our price target for Wayfair from $115 to $105 as we refine our estimates for what we view as a less favorable environment for digital advertising. Though we're maintaining our estimate for 25% direct revenue growth in 4Q, we're actually increasing our estimate for direct revenue growth in 2020 from +23% to +30%." Piper Sandler raised its price target on Microsoft to $190 from $158 Piper Sandler raised its price target on Microsoft and said that 2020 could be the defining year for the company. "The company has a unique opportunity to further elevate its cloud leadership position through share gains and needle-moving M & A. Armed with $67B in net cash & investments and another $200B of future operating cash flows over the next three years; M & A could take center stage in 2020." Barclays upgraded L Brands to 'overweight' from 'underweight' Barclays double upgraded the stock and said it saw meaningful upside if an activist or the company's management can find a way to improve the company's brands such as Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works. "We believe there is meaningful upside to LB shares if either management or the activist announce measures to improve the business and unlock inventory reduction, cost reduction, or redirection of brand positioning. Structural changes could include separation into two companies, a take-private transaction of Victoria's Secret, or leadership and/or board changes. Performance at VS has collapsed with too many stores, too much inventory, and too many promos, while Bath & Body Works has maintained peak operating margins north of 20%." Bank of America downgraded Dollar Tree to 'neutral' from 'buy' Bank of America downgraded the stock and said it sees margin pressures at the company's Family Dollar division. "We are lowering our rating on DLTR to Neutral from Buy, as we see growing risks that DLTR's merchandising & leadership transitions could result in con'td margin pressures at the Family Dollar division in 2020. Our PO is now $95 (was $105), which is 18-19x our unchanged and below-consensus F21E EPS of $5.15." Morgan Stanley upgraded Micron and Western Digital to 'overweight' from 'equal weight' Morgan Stanley upgraded Micron and Western Digital and said memory pricing strength "persists." "Upgrading Micron and Western Digital as memory pricing strength persists. We did not expect memory fundamentals to bottom this quickly, but as proof points grow, the ramifications are significant – the higher trough and the elevated valuation environment for semis suggests memory rerating potential even given the moves we have already seen." Read more about this call here . Bank of America downgraded BJ's Wholesale to 'neutral' from 'buy' Bank of America downgraded the membership-only warehouse chain and said it sees concern about the company's growth outlook on "unfavorable" exposure in the northeast. "We see same-store sales and membership renewal risks in 2020 given potential disruption from ongoing merchandising transitions as well as risk to BJ 's growth outlook from unfavorable exposure to the Northeast, which is experiencing a declining population and softer economic growth." UBS raised its price target on Nvidia to $300 from $240 UBS raised its price target on the designer of graphics processing units for gaming and said it sees a "favorable" set up for the stock. "Despite NVDA continuing to outperform the SOX/S & P 500 by a wide margin over the last 3 months, we see $300 as the next stop for the stock and raise our price target accordingly. The set-up continues to be favorable as Street estimates look conservative and we see a path to ~$10 EPS in C2021 on the back of a new 7nm (Ampere) product cycle in both data center + gaming. On the gaming side, 7nm (initially at Samsung) should re-establish the price/performance gap with AMD even as Navi proliferates up the stack.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduces the Cybertruck at an event on Nov. 21, 2019.

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Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday:

UBS resumed coverage of Tesla as 'sell'

UBS said it is sees Tesla as the original equipment manufacturer with the biggest long-term autonomous vehicle opportunity.

"We take a more bullish fundamental view on Tesla's technology and cost lead in hardware & software. We expect Tesla to reach 10% OP margin and generate $3-5bn annual FCF from 2022 onwards, based on known products and capacities. Also, we view Tesla as the original equipment manufacturer with the biggest long-term autonomous vehicles opportunity. We believe this justifies a market cap well above most incumbent OEMs. However, Tesla shares now discount 1.6m vehicles sold in 2025 at 11% OP margin, after doubling in value since Q3 results."

Morgan Stanley upgraded General Electric to 'overweight' from 'equal weight'

Morgan Stanley said it sees a "budding turnaround" in General Electric and that any disruption from Boeing's 737 Max will be temporary.

"We view Aviation as a best-in-class franchise and the 737 MAX disruption as temporary. At the same time, tail risks from Power, pension, and Long-Term Care are declining. 2021 brings significant cash flow and strong improvement in risk/reward."