Here are Friday's biggest analyst calls of the day: Target, Penn, Lordstown Motors, Walmart & more

Published Fri, Nov 12 20218:37 AM EST

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: B Riley initiates coverage of Caesars as buy B Riley said that it sees many forward catalysts for the stock. "We initiate coverage of Caesars Entertainment, Inc. a land-based and digital casino gaming owner/operator, with a Buy rating and a 12-month price target of $191 per share. Our base-case valuation combines $143 per share for CZR's Las Vegas and regional brick-and-mortar casino businesses, $41 per share for the digital casino business, and $7 per share for its managed casino business." Deutsche Bank upgrades Penn Nation to hold from sell Deutsche upgraded the operator of casinos and racetracks mainly on valuation. "Since this time, PENN has massively underperformed the regional peers, a group which includes BYD, CZR, GDEN, and RRR (Peer Group Average Return +194% vs PENN +61%), each of which are and have been Buy rated, and as such we are upgrading shares to Hold from Sell. … At present, we believe PENN, the Company we covered since 2011, and recommended as a Buy from 2011 through January of 2020, is just a sideshow, a sideshow to a wildly volatile, incredibly libelous, and misleading social media front man." Wedbush downgrades Nvidia to neutral from outperform Wedbush downgraded the stock mainly on valuation. "While typically we would want to tie a rating change to some sort of negative catalyst; frankly there is none. Conditions rather have only improved for NVDA over the past three months." Read more about this call here. Goldman Sachs downgrades Hewlett Packard Enterprise to sell from neutral Goldman downgraded Hewlett Packard Enterprise due to a weakening IT spending environment. "Overall, we see both Dell and Cisco as better options for investors within our enterprise IT hardware coverage. Our revised PT implies a total return of 13% downside vs an average total return of 13% upside for our coverage universe." Read more about this call here. BTIG downgrades Lordstown Motors to neutral from buy BTIG downgraded the electric vehicle maker after its earnings report on Thursday and said it has concerns about the company's flagship vehicle being pushed back to late 2022. " Lordstown Motors plans to be the first electric vehicle (EV) pickup truck company to market in the U.S. and is targeting initial deliveries of its flagship vehicle, the Endurance, in 2H22." JPMorgan reiterates Target as overweight JPMorgan kept its overweight rating on shares of Target ahead of its earnings report next week and said the stock is a "clear winner" heading into the holiday season. "We also continue to believe that TGT' s 2Q print (and subsequently ORLY, FND, and W) are the early candidates of a moderating earning revision curve on gross margin. Taking a sequential view on this metric suggests TGT is more de-risked than others given its 2Q performance lowered the bar (especially considering increasing investor bearishness into the print)." Jefferies reiterates Walmart as buy Jefferies said in a note to clients on Friday that it sees a favorable outlook ahead of Walmart' s third-quarter earnings next week. "We expect a Q3 beat & are biased to upside based on alt data and opex mgmt. We are slightly above/below Street on Q4 comp/EPS and see upside potential based on topline momentum and ability to manage supply chain/inflation & opex, which could lead to a favorable outlook." Bank of America reiterates General Electric as buy Bank of America reiterated its buy rating on shares of General Electric after the company announced earlier this week that it would break up. The bank said it sees upward estimate revisions "over time." "We maintain our Buy rating and $140 price objective. We view pending spin-offs as catalysts for moving valuation closer to our sum-of-the-parts analysis and see the broader commercial aviation recovery as supporting upward estimate revisions over time." Morgan Stanley reiterates Signature Bank as a top pick Morgan Stanley kept Signature Bank as one of the firm's top picks and said it's "attractively valued." "Which banks stand out positively and negatively, adjusting for cash deployment? On a 'cash-adjusted basis', top pick SBNY appears attractively valued at just 14.2x 2022e EPS given its growth outlook." Bank of America reiterates ViacomCBS as buy Bank of America kept its buy rating on the stock and said shares are attractive. The bank is bullish on ViacomCBS's streaming service. "The company has a deep breadth of content (library of 140k TV episodes and 3600+ films across sports, movies, comedy, news, children etc.) that have a broad appeal and expand the potential TAM for their streaming service." Benchmark initiates coverage of Papa John's as buy Benchmark initiated coverage of the pizza chain company and said it sees more growth ahead. "Initiating Papa John's International at Buy with $145 Price Target – reflecting company specific drivers of same-store-sales growth not seen by competitors. PZZA is one of the leading players in the global pizza delivery market, generating over $4.2B in systemwide sales in FY21." Cowen names Williams-Sonoma a top pick Cowen said in a note to clients on Friday morning that it sees upside heading into Williams-Sonoma's earnings. " WSM is our pick into earnings as we see greater upside to Street's 3Q and FY21 estimates, and like a beat and raise set-up." JPMorgan reiterates Qualcomm as overweight JPMorgan reiterated its overweight rating on shares of Qualcomm and said the stock is relatively inexpensive. "Qualcomm's investor day next week will provide the company, including its new CEO, the opportunity to outline a new set of targets to convince investors that the diversification of the company beyond the smartphone baseband market is about to pay dividends in delivering sustained robust top-line growth."

A shopping cart is seen in a Target store in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., November 14, 2017.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: