Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Apple, Facebook, Oracle, JetBlue, FireEye
- Bank of America upgrading Apple to buy from neutral
- Nomura Instinet upgrading Facebook to buy from neutral
- Nomura Instinet downgrading Oracle to reduce from buy
- Barclays downgrading JetBlue to equal weight from overweight
- Goldman Sachs initiating Baker Hughes as buy and adding to the conviction buy list
- J.P. Morgan upgrading FireEye to overweight from neutral
Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street Monday:
Bank of America upgrading Apple to 'buy' from 'neutral'
"We upgrade Apple to buy (post our downgrade on Nov 2, 2018), predicated on: (1) stability of supply chain order cuts and large reversal of inventory overhang in iPhones, (2) gross profit dollars reversing from declines to growth in 2H19, which is correlated to the stock price, (3) modest reacceleration in services (China gaming) including upcoming announcements, (4) overshoot of negative estimate revisions particularly in F20/21, (5) growth across healthcare, wearables and increasing services penetration, (6) growing installed base of users that will refresh supporting 200mn iPhone average annual shipments with cyclicality around it, (7) competitive products supporting a higher price umbrella around foldable and 5G phones, (8) highly loyal user base (Fig 20/21 show results of our global survey of 151,262 total respondents across U.S., U.K, China, and India), with low churn where demographic changes are in Apple's favor, (9) strong FCF with potential for M&A, and capital return (support for the stock given the recent selloff and lowered relative weighting), and (10) valuation ex-cash attractive at 10x. We raise our PO to $210 from $180..."
Read more on this call here.
Nomura Instinet upgrading Facebook to 'buy' from 'neutral'
"Expect positive revisions throughout the year: Given management's original commentary that operating margins would trend towards the mid- 30% range over "the next several years," and considering guidance for 2019 expense growth essentially equates to 35-36% operating margins right out of the gate, we believe the expense growth outlook may be tempered as we progress throughout the year... While we're not baking in any improvement for 2019, we assume 2020 operating margins are 100bps better than our prior model, and reach 35% in 2021.... • Regulation likely makes FB stronger: We continue to believe that increased regulation will be a net positive for large platforms like FB, though there could be some headline risk in the near-to-medium term... On the whole, we do think the negative headline headwinds have largely been exhausted, with little reaction to negative press as of late..."
Read more on this call here.
Nomura Instinet downgrading Oracle to 'reduce' from 'buy'
"ORCL's historic buyback program has helped drive the stock to near all-time highs, but the rate of $10bn in buybacks per quarter can't last forever.. While the company is rewarding shareholders with its capital return program, we believe ORCL is significantly underinvesting in R&D compared to peers at the expense of revenue and operating income growth, while also limiting its opportunity to participate in transformative M&A... Our detailed analysis of ORCL's buybacks since 2012 suggests a high correlation of the rate of the buyback and ORCL stock performance, and we believe a reversion back to the historical average of ~$3bn per quarter in buybacks over the next two years is not enough to meet consensus estimates... While we do see the migration of ERP to the cloud as a positive, we believe the financial engineering is reaching its breaking point... We are downgrading ORCL to Reduce (from Buy) and lowering our TP to $42 from $53..."
Barclays downgrading JetBlue to 'equalweight' from 'overweight'
"JetBlue, there is a lot to like, but not much traction...as reminded this quarter,commercial initiatives can be subject to competitive pressure...Despite meaningful capacity expansion and a structural cost program announced over two years ago, JetBlue's cost performance has yet to meaningfully improve."
Goldman Sachs initiating Baker Hughes as 'buy' and adding to the 'conviction buy' list
"We initiate with a Buy rating (on CL) and a 12-month price target of $36 (implying a 37% return)... Investment drivers: 1. Well positioned for the expected growth in LNG sanctioning 2. Levered across the energy chain from upstream to midstream to downstream 3. Focused on growing market share, increasing margins, delivering strong free cash flow 4. Returning cash to shareholders, strong balance sheet.."
J.P. Morgan upgrading FireEye to 'overweight' from 'neutral'
"The year to date performance for FEYE's stock has been 23% below our overall coverage, and the stock is now trading at 3.7x our FY19 revenue estimates... We believe this represents an attractive risk reward profile in light of our belief that billings will accelerate through the course of 2019... The 10% billings growth in the December quarter, we believe, reflects the true growth opportunity for FEYE and the 6-7% revenue guide for FY19 is more a factor of accounting treatment of the appliance revenue that is becoming a much smaller part of the overall story... In addition, new packaging and enterprise on demand offering could provide a lift to growth. The result is we are upgrading to overweight..."