(This is CNBC Pro’s live coverage of Monday’s analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) A major streaming company and a tech giant were among the stocks being talked about by analysts on Monday. Piper Sandler upgraded Netflix to overweight from neutral. Meanwhile, Jefferies lowered its rating on Apple to hold from buy. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 7:19 a.m.: Wells Fargo upgrades Gilead Sciences Wells Fargo believes an opportunity in the HIV drugs market could propel Gilead Sciences higher. The investment firm upgraded the biopharmaceutical stock to overweight from equal weight and hiked its price target by $22 to $100. That implies more than 18% upside from Friday’s close. Analyst Mohit Bansal said continued market expansion for PrEP — or pre-exposure prophylaxis, which is a drug used to prevent getting HIV — will boost the company’s growth, as he sees a “rapid” uptake of Gilead’s HIV drug lenacapavir, or Sunlenca. Not only that, Bansal also anticipates the success of the company’s other drug offerings like seladelpar – which treats the liver disease known as primary biliary cholangitis. He forecasts $1.5 billion in sales in 2030 for that one in particular. “Sunlenca opens a larger opportunity and rapid launch in PrEP while seladelpar and other launches add incremental growth,” he wrote in a note. “We also see upside in pipeline assets and like GILD’s strategy to extend HIV treatment business past Biktarvy’s [loss of exclusivity].” Shares have soared nearly 27% in the past three months and more than 21% in the past six. Year to date, the stock has gained more than 4%. — Sean Conlon 6:48 a.m.: Deutsche says buy Western Alliance Some key catalysts could send shares of Western Alliance to the upside, according to Deutsche Bank. Analyst Bernard von-Gizycki upgraded his rating on the stock to buy from hold. His target of $101 implies more than 19% upside, as of Friday’s close. The analyst forecasts that better-than-expected earnings growth will be the next positive driver for the stock, saying that Western Alliance could be a beneficiary of a lower-rate environment and potential soft landing. With that, von-Gizycki also pointed to optionality in an improving mortgage landscape and better loan and deposit growth compared to its peers as other catalysts. “While we don’t assume robust mortgage growth, we do believe if the mortgage origination backdrop improves significantly, WAL is well positioned to benefit and provides nice optionality to earnings,” the analyst said. Year to date, Western Alliance has increased more than 28%. The stock has also gained around 34% in the past three months. — Sean Conlon 6:45 a.m.: Wells Fargo downgrades Amazon Gains will be harder to come by for Amazon , according to Wells Fargo. The bank downgraded the e-commerce giant to equal weight from overweight. Its $183 price target implies nearly 2% downside. In June 2023, “we saw Amazon on the cusp of significant positive inflections in both key business lines: [Amazon Web Services] and North America Retail. These calls have played out,” analyst Ken Gawrelski wrote. “Amazon is likely still a solid margin expansion story over the long term,” he added. “But as Amazon management has said multiple times, margin expansion won’t be linear. We, and market consensus, likely became a bit exuberant in our extrapolation of margin expansion trends in 2023 and early ’24 to ’25 and beyond forecasts.” Shares fell nearly 2% following the downgrade. AMZN 1D mountain AMZN falls — Fred Imbert 6:20 a.m.: JPMorgan downgrades Lamb Weston, says stock is ‘close to fair value’ JPMorgan sees more downside ahead for Lamb Weston . The investment bank downgraded the frozen potato supplier to neutral from overweight. It has a price target of $68, implying more than 1% downside from Friday’s close. The stock has already fallen more than 36% this year. Noting the stock is almost fairly valued as the main reason for the downgrade, analyst Ken Goldman believes the risk-reward profile is “balanced.” “It is not an indication that we think Street estimates are far too high, nor that we think LW can’t eventually grow at a reasonably healthy pace,” the analyst said, adding that he sees earnings per share growth of 11% annually from 2026 to 2027. “We just can’t recommend the shares at this time given all the uncertainty.” In terms of fundamentals, Goldman pointed to “sluggish” restaurant demand both in Europe and the U.S. On top of that, he added that forecasting demand is currently more difficult than normal given the state of the consumer. And even if demand were to improve, he said it’s unclear if it’ll keep pace with global supply expansion. “We can’t be sure that the worst is over in terms of industry supply vs. demand dynamics,” Goldman said. “They could be worse in 2-3 years than they are today.” — Sean Conlon 5:41 a.m.: Jefferies downgrades Apple Oversized expectations for the iPhone could hurt of Apple lower, according to Jefferies. Analyst Edison Lee downgraded the stock to hold from buy, and his price target of $212.92 implies more than 6% downside from Friday’s close. The analyst said near-term expectations for the iPhone 16 and 17 are “too high,” seeing weaker-than-expected initial demand. Lee also believes that the artificial intelligence capabilities of its smartphone technology are not likely to reach commercialization for another two to three years. “Unlike AI servers, smartphones lack high-speed memory and advanced packaging tech that allow fast data transfer between AP and memory, thus limiting their AI capabilities,” he wrote in a note to clients. “To expect an accelerated smartphone replacement cycle now due to AI is premature, in our view.” Apple has surged nearly 18% in 2024 and more than 33% in the past six months. AAPL YTD mountain AAPL in 2024 — Sean Conlon 5:41 a.m.: Piper Sandler upgrades Netflix to overweight Netflix’s high valuation is justified, according to Piper Sandler. Analyst Matt Farrell raised his rating on the stock to overweight from neutral. His price target of $800, up from $650, implies upside of 11.2% from Friday’s close. “The company is a clear leader in streaming. Notably, our prior Neutral stance was centered around valuation, but now, we appreciate the company is expensive for a reason,” Farrell said in a note. Indeed, Netflix trades at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 37.6, well above the S & P 500’s 24. That said, “moving forward, there are still levers to be pulled in the ads-free business (particularly around pricing), while the ads-tier has been largely de-risked heading into next year,” the analyst wrote. He added that, “in in a potentially weaker macro [environment], Netflix’s subscription based model becomes even more attractive, particularly given the upcoming content slate.” Not everyone was as optimistic on Netflix, however. Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar downgraded the streaming giant to underweight from equal weight. He kept his $550 price target unchanged, implying downside of more than 23%. “As evident over the past 2-3 years, the company has had to lean more heavily on new growth drivers to keep revenue growth in the double digits, and some of these, like paid sharing, are likely pulling forward future growth,” he wrote. “Even with these levers, growth is slowing and every lever now has corresponding trade-offs.” Netflix shares are up nearly 48% year to date. NFLX YTD mountain NFLX year to date — Fred Imbert
