Here are Thursday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Barclays reiterates Apple as underweight Barclays said it’s sticking with its underweight rating on Apple to start 2025. The bank added that the tech giant’s earnings report in late January will be “mixed at best.” “2024 saw another year with most of the stock performance driven by multiple expansion despite a weaker-than-expected iPhone 16 launch and more heightened regulatory risks. We expect 2025 to start out with a mixed at best earnings release for the December quarter.” Morgan Stanley upgrades Ferguson to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said investors should buy the dip in shares of the plumbing supply company. “We upgrade Ferguson to Overweight, on an improved BBM [best business model] ranking, US exposure, and following recent underperformance that leaves us with ~20% upside to our PT, and indications of improving underlying end markets through 2H25.” Morgan Stanley upgrades Vir Biotechnology to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its upgrade of the biotech company that its VIR -5500 cancer drugs are showing “promising initial activity and tolerability” in clinical trials. “We believe initial data provide early platform de-risking and see potential for activity to improve as dose escalation continues. … We believe initial data de-risks the TCE [T-cell engagers] platform and we upgrade to Overweight and raise our Pt to $20.” Baird reiterates Tesla as outperform Baird said it’s sticking with its outperform rating on the stock. ” TSLA: We expect valuation to be one of the primary bear arguments in 2025 and anticipate pushback with several unknowns.” Goldman Sachs reiterates Amazon as buy The firm said it’s standing by the stock ahead of earnings later this quarter. “Our Buy ratings on AMZN and CHWY reflect our continued preference for eCommerce companies that are exposed to less discretionary categories with high repeat behavior as online spending remains volatile across discretionary categories and lower income households.” Bank of America reiterates Dell as buy Bank of America said it’s sticking with shares of Dell following a series of investor meetings at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. “We expect DELL to drive significant growth in 2025 with strength driven by AI servers and rest of the traditional portfolio growing at least MSD [mid single digits].” Bank of America reiterates Alphabet as buy The firm said the search giant remains best positioned for the long term. “We see Alphabet as well positioned long term with leading AI technology to apply to search, YouTube and Cloud businesses.” Needham names CyberArk a top pick The firm said cyber security company is a top idea in 2025 and is “well positioned for sustained momentum.” “We are naming CyberArk our top pick in Security for CY25 and placing it on the Needham Conviction List.” UBS reiterates Costco as buy UBS said Costco saw “meaningful acceleration” following its December sales report. “Overall, we think the company continues to deliver compelling value, quality, and newness.” Evercore ISI reiterates Nvidia as outperform The firm said it’s sticking with it’s outperform rating on the stock following the Consumer Electronics Show presentation by the company in Las Vegas. “The announcements during the keynote and follow-up analyst Q & A reinforce our view that NVDA is delivering comprehensive full-stack solutions that position it as the AI-ecosystem supplier of choice, positioned to capture 70-80% of the value created during this computing era.” Cantor Fitzgerald initiates SentinelOne as overweight Cantor said in its initiation of SentinelOne that the cybersecurity company is gaining market share traction. “We are initiating coverage with an Overweight rating and a 12-month $30 price target based on 8.6x FY26E EV/Sales.” JPMorgan reiterates Exxon Mobil as overweight JPMorgan said it’s bullish heading into Exxon earnings on Jan. 31. “XOM’s portfolio continues to have a good mix of defense (balanced portfolio across Upstream, Downstream and Chemicals, low dividend breakeven) and offense (torque to a demand recovery).”
