Here are Tuesday's analyst calls of the day: Chipotle, Amazon, Netflix, Bank of America, GM & more

Published Tue, Oct 5 20218:30 AM EDT

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Tuesday: Cowen reiterates Netflix as outperform Cowen kept its buy rating on the streaming company ahead of its earnings report later this month and says "Netflix has the best video content." "We expect paid net adds of 3.63MM, slightly above the 3.50MM guide, as NFLX begins to ramp content into the fall. Our proprietary recurring US survey suggests NFLX continues to lead living room TV, as 28% of respondents said NFLX has the best video content, well ahead of other streaming and linear services." Wedbush initiates coverage of Ralph Lauren as outperform Wedbush said the fashion company has one of the "cleanest" balance sheets around. "We are bullish on RL shares over the next 12-18 months, as we believe that it is one of the companies in our space that still has "legs" to the COVID recovery." Wedbush initiates coverage of Nike and Under Armour as outperform Wedbush said the athletic retail stocks are "long-term structural winners." "We think the most compelling long-term risk/reward comes from UAA (early stage turnaround story), though we expect short-term volatility due to supply chain issues. We are also OP-rated on NKE and ADS-DE (another name that could see near-term supply chain volatility)." Bank of America reiterates General Motors as buy Bank of America reiterated its buy rating on the automaker and said it's the "clear" industry leader among peers. "Bolds steps such as exiting Europe and preemptive structural cost actions are evidence that GM is capable of transformative change, which is encouraging. Ultimately, we believe GM already has much of the pieces in place for its Future business, with some incremental refinement/rationalization likely forthcoming." Piper Sandler reiterates Apple as overweight Piper Sandler said that the tech giant continues to be popular in its latest survey among teens. " Apple 's share of smartphone ownership remains near record highs in Piper Sandler's Taking Stock with Teens Fall 2021 survey. Of the ~10,000 respondents, 87% have an iPhone, which is slightly below the 88% record set in the Spring 2021 survey." BMO downgrades Albertsons to underperform from market perform BMO downgraded the grocery company due to wage risks. "We see risk to ACI' s margin outlook given significantly greater margin expansion relative to key grocery peers. We see risk to GM% (gross margin) in a more price-sensitive consumer environment and risk on the wage front as unionized grocers have been shielded from broader industry wage rate increases given contract negotiation cycles." Read more about this call here. Morgan Stanley downgrades Lordstown Motors to underweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its downgrade of the electric vehicle company's that Lordstown's plant sale "leaves little" for equity holders. " Lordstown announced an agreement to sell its plant to Foxconn for $230mm, less than 1/5 of our prior plant value estimate. This, combined with our lowered forecasts (which assume the Endurance is not commercially viable), drives our price target to $2 and our rating to UW." Read more about this call here. Stephens reiterates Chipotle as overweight Stephens raised its price target on the stock to $2,000 from $1,850 but said its checks show labor shortages have caused a gradual increase in the number of restaurants that have had to deactivate digital sales. "The next catalysts for CMG are: (1) lessening of labor issues, (2) easing of commodity price pressures, and (3) menu innovation like brisket (impact TBD)." Goldman Sachs reiterates Amazon as buy Goldman Sachs said it's very bullish heading into Amazon's earnings report later this month. "Based on our fundamental work and channel checks, we expect AMZN to report $113b of Q3 '21 revenue and $6.0b of Q3 '21 EBIT (both slightly ahead of Street estimates)." Bank of America downgrades Columbia Sportswear to neutral from buy Bank of America said in its downgrade of the stock that supply chain constraints are likely to pressure the outlook. "We are downgrading COLM to Neutral and lowering our PO to $108 (from $137) based on 22-23X our F22 EPS of $4.90 given: (1) we now see risk to 1H22 wholesale shipments given global supply chain constraints including continued shipping delays and the impact of Vietnam factory closures which we believe could have an outsized impact on COLM's footwear business; (2) potential continued pressure on gross margins through 2022 given elevated ocean freight costs." Read more about this call here. Bank of America resumes Bed Bath & Beyond as underperform Bank of America reinstated coverage of the stock and said the company's guidance is too optimistic. " BBBY reported its 2Q21 (Jun-Aug) earnings last week and attributed softness to an industry-wide slowdown in Aug especially in southern states hardest hit by COVID. However, this trend is not evident in our industry spending data. And BBBY's comps have not improved in September even as COVID cases have fallen." Goldman Sachs reiterates Bank of America and Morgan Stanley as top picks Goldman said Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are two of the investment banks top picks heading into earnings next week and that the quarterly results will be "driven by broadly higher fee income." "Heading into EPS, we prefer Buy-rated BAC a nd MS, and we are 7% and 3% above the Street on PPNR (Pre-provision net revenue), respectively, driven by broadly higher fee income across both capital markets and consumer fees." Atlantic Equities initiates coverage of Charles Schwab as overweight Atlantic Equities said the brokerage firm's stock is inexpensive. " Schwab has built a pre-eminent, self-directed broking franchise but more importantly, the recent shift to focus on asset-gathering creates far more sustainable and compounding revenue streams." Bank of America resumes Procter & Gamble and Estee Lauder as buy Bank of America resumed coverage of several home and personal care stocks and said Estee Lauder and Procter & Gamble were best positioned to navigate supply chain disruptions. "Large, well-capitalized companies like CL, EL , and PG , were better able to adapt to the dynamic market 1) rapidly expanding direct-to-consumer capabilities 2) Navigating supply chain disruptions resulting in market share gains." Mizuho reiterates Robinhood as buy Mizuho kept its buy rating on the stock and said its survey checks show Robinhood users are not overly concerned about a full ban of payment for order flow by the SEC. Payment for order flow is compensation a stockbroker receives in exchange for the broker routing its clients' trades. "In light of SEC Chairman Gensler's recent comment that a full ban of payment for order flow (PFOF) is 'on the table,' we asked Robinhood users whether they would be willing to pay a small fee in order to continue trading on the Robinhood platform. The survey highlights better-than-feared customer loyalty. Only about 10% of users said they are unlikely to stay on the platform. The remainder (~90%) either vows to stay or has yet to decide." JPMorgan reiterates Amazon as overweight JPMorgan kept its overweight rating on the e-commerce giant and says the stock is still very "compelling." "We recognize the near-term concerns & uncertainty over the next few months, but we believe there is still significant secular shift toward ecommerce ahead & AMZN has a very strong track record around investing into future growth opportunities." William Blair reiterates General Electric as outperform William Blair reiterated its outperform rating General Electric but says supply chain issues could disrupt sales and earnings near term. "The preponderance of challenges in the industrial operating environment have become notably more material since earlier this summer. Rather than the cost of material and labor inputs, the challenges have shifted to availability of skilled labor, raw materials, and critical components as well as immense delays in the transportation and logistics ecosystem.'

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Tuesday: