CoreWeave initiated, Instacart downgraded: Wall Street’s top analyst calls

The most talked about and market moving research calls around Wall Street are now in one place. Here are today’s research calls that investors need to know, as compiled by The Fly.

Top 5 Upgrades:

• Morgan Stanley upgraded Celsius Holdings (CELH) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $70, up from $61. Brand Celsius has returned to growth following last year’s share slowdown and the firm expects further improvement with much easier comps from December through early June, says the firm, which sees another leg up in the stock to be driven by a greater than expected reacceleration in topline growth.
• UBS upgraded FIS (FIS) to Buy from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $82. The firm believes the company’s risk/reward is improved with the shares down 20% year-to-date.
• Oppenheimer upgraded Semtech (SMTC) to Outperform from Perform with an $81 price target after hosting management for meetings. Semtech CEO Hong Hou had a bullish tone and detailed growth opportunities led by active copper cable and linear pluggable optics for data center artificial intelligence, the firm says.
• BofA upgraded Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) to Buy from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $42. After having spoken with President and CEO Kathleen Quirk, the firm reports that it “gained no material new information,” but came away increasingly confident that the current valuation sufficiently prices the key risks around its temporarily halted Grasberg copper/gold mine in Indonesia.
• More bullish on the name, Maxim upgraded Adial Pharmaceuticals (ADIL) to Buy from Hold with a $1.50 price target.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• BTIG downgraded Instacart (CART) to Neutral from Buy with no price target, citing “ongoing negative competitive developments.” The week started with “yet another competitive announcement” with an ongoing push into the grocery delivery category by Amazon (AMZN), Doordash (DASH) and Uber (UBER), says the firm, which notes that Instacart partners representing an estimated 25%-plus of Gross Order Volume have signed deals with Amazon, Doordash or Uber in the last two weeks.
• Goldman Sachs downgraded Spotify (SPOT) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $770, up from $765. The firm sees a balanced risk/reward for the shares into the company’s Q3 earnings report.
• BofA downgraded Oklo (OKLO) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $117, up from $92. Valuation now embeds deployment ramps and discount rates the firm views as “unrealistic at this stage” of small modular reactor adoption, the firm tells investors.
• HSBC downgraded Unity (U) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $40.80, up from $37.50. While Unity remains on the right track, valuation now appears fair after year-to-date share price gains, the firm tells investors in a research note.
• BofA downgraded NuScale Power (SMR) to Underperform from Neutral with a price target of $34, down from $38. While the firm remains positive on the long-term nuclear theme, current valuations “leave little room for error and the near-term risk/reward skews negative.”

Top 5 Initiations:

• Evercore ISI initiated coverage of CoreWeave (CRWV) with an Outperform rating and $175 price target. While the firm concedes that the stock will be volatile near-term, it sees higher probability CoreWeave is able to sustain and scale their differentiation from training to inferencing, the firm says.
• Citizens JMP initiated coverage of Circle Internet (CRCL) with a Market Perform rating and no price target. Circle offers a “compelling” long-term growth opportunity tied to stablecoins and tokenized finance, but the current share price reflects this, the firm says.
• HSBC initiated coverage of Lam Research (LRCX) with a Hold rating and $127 price target. Lam Research is well placed to benefit from structurally growing demand for wafer fab equipment and serviceable available market expansion associated with various technology transitions, but near-term revenue growth outperformance over WFE spending and overall growth are likely to slow, driven by tough comps in the foundry and NAND end markets, and upside to consensus estimates appears priced in.
• Canaccord initiated coverage of FirstCash (FCFS) with a Buy rating and $200 price target. The firm believes the shares warrant a premium valuation given the attractiveness of the pawn industry.
• JPMorgan initiated coverage of Elbit Systems (ESLT) with a Neutral rating and $520 price target. With the stock up 157% in the past year, JPMorgan seeks a better entry point into the name.