Here are Monday's biggest analyst calls: UBS, Netflix, First Republic, Carnival, Meta, Amazon & more

Published Mon, Mar 20 20238:41 AM EDTUpdated Mon, Mar 20 202310:09 AM EDT

Here are Monday's biggest calls on Wall Street: Baird upgrades US Bancorp to overweight from neutral Baird said the risk/reward is "very attractive" for the regional bank stock. "Regional bank risk/reward trade-off remains very attractive, in our view, upgrading USB to Outperform, market pricing in permanent destruction in ROAs (return on assets)." Read more about this call here. Morgan Stanley reiterates Match as a top pick Morgan Stanley said it sees more industry growth for stocks such as Match. "Payer slowdowns at Match and Bumble have driven market concerns that the US online dating market is reaching saturation. Our new deep dive suggests otherwise, but we see future industry growth more dependent on monetization." Deutsche Bank upgrades Kimberly-Clark and Conagra to hold from sell Deutsche upgraded several staples manufacturers mainly on valuation. "At the same time, we move to a slightly more constructive relative view on our coverage overall, exemplified by upgrades of two previously Sell-rated names to Hold— KMB and CAG —as both now trade at levels more consistent with our target prices..." Morgan Stanley names Amazon, Walmart, Nike and Farfetch top e-commerce picks Morgan Stanley named Amazon , Walmart, Nike and Farfetch as stocks that are "best positioned" for e-commerce acceleration. "E-commerce penetration is growing again off a higher post- COVID base. Scale players with leading platforms/ infrastructure are best positioned to take share." Bernstein upgrades Pepsi to market perform from underperform Bernstein said it was wrong about the stock. "If we were being defensive, we might argue that competitive data for PEP's beverage business have continued to look miserable, both in the US and Internationally: PEP is consistently losing share. Margins also remain a long way from management's mid-teens target. Strong, pricing-led category growth is what caught us offside." Edward Jones upgrades Meta to buy from hold Edward Jones said it's getting more constructive on shares of Meta. "Meta is notably reducing its previous expense expectations, addressing our concerns about especially heavy spending on its metaverse virtual-reality initiative." Goldman Sachs initiates Dell as buy Goldman said it sees an attractive risk/reward for the PC stock. " Dell Technologies (DELL, Buy, 12m TP of $43): Estimates rebased lower following revenue warnings on PCs, servers, and storage, resulting in favorable risk-reward." JPMorgan reiterates Netflix as overweight JPMorgan said investors should buy the dip in shares of the streaming giant. "In January NFLX said it expected to roll out Paid Sharing more broadly later in 1Q. That could still happen in the next several days, but there is growing concern that early friction could delay or stagger the rollout, pushing it deeper into 2Q and beyond." UBS initiates Treehouse Foods as buy UBS said the food products company is in the early stages of a "beat and raise cycle." "We are initiating coverage on THS with a Buy rating and $60 PT. We believe the company is in the early innings of a beat and raise cycle as it stands to benefit from several strategic initiatives and secular tailwinds." Raymond James upgrades Enphase to outperform from market perform Raymond James said its upgrade is "opportunistic and partly thematic." "With today's upgrade from Market Perform to Outperform, we are turning positive on Enphase for the first time since 2013, i.e., ancient history by solar industry standards. This upgrade is partly opportunistic and partly thematic." Read more about this call here. Deutsche Bank upgrades Dow to buy from hold Deutsche said the "worst is behind us." "As with any commodity upgrade, the key question is why now. For Dow it is because: i) the worst is behind or close to being behind the company, and ii) the plethora of investment positives far outweigh the investment negatives at this time." Morgan Stanley reiterates First Republic as underweight Morgan Stanley said it sees too many negative outcomes for First Republic. "In either case, given that the big bank deposits have a term of 120 days, we expect the bank will need to determine its forward course of action within that time frame, perhaps even within the next few of weeks." Bank of America upgrades UBS to buy from neutral Bank of America said it sees a "potential re-rating" after UBS announced it was acquiring Credit Suisse on Sunday. " UBS will have a smaller relative Investment Bank balance sheet, 25% compared with 33% historically. The market has rewarded more-Swiss and Wealth, less-IB business mixes and we see the potential for a re-rating from current multiples." Read more about analyst reaction to the deal here. Truist initiates Roper as buy Truist called Roper the "biggest software company you've never heard of." " Roper is a large cap S & P 500 co. with an investment grade credit rating and is emerging from a ~5 year business transformation into one of the largest application software companies with leadership in many niche vertical markets." JMP initiates Genius Sports as market outperform JMP said the sports data company is an industry leader. "Initiating coverage on Genius Sports, a technology provider connecting betting, advertising, and media, with a Market Outperform rating and $7 price target, derived from 17.5x 2025E EBITDA and 18x FCF." KBW upgrades New York Community Bancorp to outperform from market perform KBW said the deal for Signature Bank seems "almost too good to be true." "We are upgrading NYCB to Outperform on the back of tonight's purchase and assumption transaction with Signature Bank and the FDIC, which pencil out to massive accretion: 70% to EPS and 48% to TBV, Deutsche Bank adds a catalyst call buy on Carnival Deutsche Bank said it's bullish on the stock heading into earnings later this month. "The company reports F1Q23 results premarket on Monday March 27 and we believe the report is likely to elicit a positive reaction from the stock, based primarily on weakening sentiment heading into the print, as well as what we believe to be a low bar for CCL's outlook for the remainder of FY23." Bank of America reiterates Nvidia as buy Bank of America said it's bullish heading into Nvidia's flagship AI and tech conference this week. "Maintain Buy, top compute pick ahead of NVDA's flagship GPU Tech Conf (GTC) including CEO keynote Mar 21 (Tue) at 11am followed by financial analyst Q & A at 1pm US ET. We expect the event to reinforce NVDA's AI leadership and showcase new recurring subscription and software opportunities." Bank of America upgrades NRG Energy to buy from neutral Bank of America said in its upgrade of NRG that the stock is underappreciated. "Upgrading to Buy from Neutral as investors are underappreciating the value of the core retail plus nuclear franchise."