Here are Friday's biggest analyst calls of the day: Amazon, Costco, Visa, AMC, Microsoft, Nio & more

Published Fri, Jul 9 20218:22 AM EDTUpdated Fri, Jul 9 20219:12 AM EDT

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: Oppenheimer reiterates Microsoft as a top pick Oppenheimer reiterated the tech giant as a top pick and said it was well positioned to take market share in the growing cloud space. " MSFT is positioned to take cloud market share and its bundling of Teams into Windows 11 positions it to become the killer application for collaboration and de facto standard for the virtual workplace." Bank of America reiterates Amazon as buy Bank of America kept its buy rating on Amazon after the company announced a partnership on Thursday with BigCommerce, an ecommerce platform that provides software as a service to retailers. "We see the BigCommerce announcement as a clear indication that Amazon is working toward a building a logistics services business, a potential positive for the stock." Bank of America reiterates Costco as buy Bank of America reiterated its buy rating on shares of the retail giant after it reported strong June comps on Thursday. "COST reported June comps (for 5 weeks ending 7/4) of 7.8% for the US and 7.9% for the total company. ... .We maintain our Buy and continue to see COST as well-positioned in both the COVID-19 environment & long-term." Evercore ISI reiterates Levi's as outperform Evercore raised its price target on shares of the denim jeans company to $40 from $36 after Levi's strong earnings and said it was a top "recovery-and-beyond stock" " Levi's delivered another solid quarter with a nice sales beat and record gross margin for the 3rd consecutive print. Management cautiously expects business to decelerate from recent strong June trends, but we wonder if the profit and loss could be coiled to deliver substantial upside if the momentum sustains or even strengthens from here." Susquehanna raises price target Virgin Galactic to $45 from $20 Susquehanna raised its price target on the space flight company but reiterated its neutral rating and said the stock has run too far too fast. "This Sunday, July 11, Virgin Galactic will perform its first fully crewed test flight, with Sir Richard Branson onboard to evaluate the private astronaut experience. ... .It remains to be seen if the Branson flight will be a similar catalyst as the stock is already up almost 10% this week alone in anticipation of the flight. The stock's recent run from ~$16/share in mid-May up to ~$56/share has far exceeded our expectation, but we do believe it pulls forward an expectation for a significant amount of future financial performance that is not yet proven." UBS reiterates Signature Bank as buy UBS kept its buy rating on shares of the regional bank and said it had an "early advantage" in its adoption of crypto. "The rally in SBNY November through March based on both gearing to economic recovery in NYC combined with the emergence of its new digital banking capacity, drove a partial re-rating as the shares met then exceeded the average mid-cap bank multiple." Citi upgrades Discover to buy from neutral After a change in analyst coverage, Citi upgraded the credit card company and said it had the "clearest" path to benefit from consumer spending. "We are assuming coverage of Discover Financial at Buy from Neutral, American Express at Neutral and Synchrony Financial at Neutral. We are positive on all three companies over the intermediate term (1-3 years), but believe that DFS has the clearest near-term path to benefit from the return of consumer card spending and lending as pandemic-related benefits expire and elevated payment rates return to lower levels." Morgan Stanley reiterates Palo Alto Network as a top pick Morgan Stanley said the cybersecurity company was a top beneficiary of "accelerating security demand." "Our latest survey of US Chief Security Officers suggests accelerating security demand to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving threat environment. While these trends likely benefit the group more broadly, we see most favorable risk/rewards in PANW , CYBR, SAIL." Morgan Stanley reiterates Blackrock as overweight Morgan Stanley kept its overweight rating on shares of the asset manager and said it had "diversified scale and breadth." "Prefer Overweight BLK for diversified scaled business model, broad product set, wider distribution reach to drive organic growth, and expense levers to pull." Evercore ISI upgrades Norfolk Southern to outperform from in line Evercore said in its upgrade of the railroad company that investors should buy any weakness in the stock. "To that end, we are upgrading NSC to Outperform (from In Line) as its EPS prospects for the next two years are set to lead the industry amid margin reversion associated with precision-scheduled railroading implementation, yet after recent underperformance the relative valuation misses this opportunity." Wedbush initiates General Motors as outperform Wedbush said in its initiation of the automaker that it was bullish on General Motors "electric future." "With at least 20 new models of electric vehicles coming out within the next two years and 30 in the next three, 2021 serves as an inflection point for the legacy auto company as they are completely shifting focus towards an electric future." Read more about this call here. RBC initiates Match as outperform RBC initiated the online dating company with an outperform rating and said Match' s stock was "underappreciated." "In particular, we like the company's roll-up strategy, which raises the odds it can capture whatever growth the market has to offer in the event of new up-starts while doing so accretively relative to competitors, which we think is underappreciated." RBC initiates Bumble as outperform RBC said in its initiation of the dating app company that it had "profitability tailwinds." "We believe BMBL is the quality over quantity play in online dating, where our three part thesis is: 1) an expanding TAM driven by online producing increasingly durable outcomes vs. offline, 2) female-first driving differentiated monetization and profitability tailwinds." Oppenheimer names Visa a top pick Oppenheimer named the credit card company as a top pick and said it saw revenue growth re-acclerating. "Our top pick in the space. Improving domestic volumes and accelerating crossborder volumes, we think consensus estimates are slightly pessimistic and current trends can beat current estimate trajectory. As revenue growth rate re-accelerates, we think investors will be less worried about Fintechs and startups circumventing the networks, especially given partnerships and V' s newly acquired businesses." Bank of America adds Progressive to the US 1 list Bank of America added the auto insurance company to its US 1 list and said it sees price increases for consumers. "We are adding Progressive on the thesis that the recent inflation in the price of used cars and parts is likely to manifest itself in broad increases in pricing for auto insurance nationwide across most carriers." Loop reiterates AMC as sell Loop reiterated its sell rating on shares of AMC and said the movie theater company has "too many screens." "Old theaters don't die, they just get repurposed into new theaters. There are simply too many screens for the movie-going public. We thought one silver lining of the pandemic is that it might finally rationalize the number of screens in the US." Seaport initiates UnitedHealth as buy Seaport said in its initiation of the health insurance company that it was one of the most well positioned providers in the sector. " UNH is one of the best-positioned companies in the managed care sector, with leading shares in commercial and government markets that complement its faster growing Optum services and technology portfolio." HSBC upgrades Nio to buy from hold HSBC said in its upgrade of the electric vehicle company that it sees "strong volume growth momentum." "We expect NIO 's volume growth momentum to pick up on strong EV demand and the competitive premium EV proposition and established brand traction. On a higher volume outlook, we raise our DCF-based target price to USD69 (from USD54), implying 50% upside from the current share price."

An AMC theatre is pictured in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, June 2, 2021.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: