Starbucks downgraded, Oracle initiated: 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:

• Jefferies upgraded Mondelez (MDLZ) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $78, up from $66. At Jefferies’ conference, the company spoke of a strong Easter with share gains in key markets, the firm notes, adding that Europe channel data supports the claim.
• Leerink upgraded Elanco (ELAN) to Outperform from Market Perform with a price target of $18, up from $14.50. The firm is gaining conviction in the company’s Pet Health launches – namely Credelio Quattro in the U.S. – and remains positive on the growth prospects within Farm Animal.
• Morgan Stanley upgraded Amicus (FOLD) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $108, up from $102. The firm said the upgrade is based on its favorable view of Amicus’ intellectual property position heading into summary judgment with Aurobindo and longer-term confidence in patients switching from Nexviazyme/Lumizyme to PomOp.
• BofA upgraded CSX (CSX) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $42, up from $34, after digital news platform Semafor reported that Union Pacific (UNP) hired an investment bank to explore an acquisition of an Eastern railroad.
• JPMorgan upgraded Cars.com (CARS) to Overweight from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $14. The firm cites valuation and reduced cyclical risk for the upgrade of Cars.com.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Jefferies downgraded Starbucks (SBUX) to Underperform from Hold with an unchanged price target of $76. The stock has gotten ahead of “reasonable expectations for improving fundamentals,” the firm tells investors in a research note.
• JPMorgan downgraded Teradyne (TER) to Neutral from Overweight with a price target of $102, up from $88. The firm says uncertainty in the macro environment is pressuring customer decisions on capital projects for semiconductor equipment.
• Jefferies downgraded Shake Shack (SHAK) to Underperform from Hold with a price target of $120, up from $100. The firm says investor optimism around the company’s near-term same-store sales recovery is more than reflected in the stock following the recent rally.
• Leerink downgraded Zoetis (ZTS) to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $155, down from $180. The firm is now less positive on the company’s growth prospects over the next several years due to rising competition in the legacy dermatology business and a Librela launch “that appears to have lost momentum.”
• Evercore ISI downgraded Progressive (PGR) to In Line from Outperform with a $275 price target. The firm struggles to see any upside given where the company is in the cycle.

Top 5 Initiations:

• Scotiabank initiated coverage of Oracle (ORCL) with an Outperform rating and $300 price target. The firm’s work points to “the white heat of the AI revolution” driving Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to grow faster than company guidance in FY26.
• Deutsche Bank resumed coverage of PayPal (PYPL), Block (XYZ), Affirm (AFRM), Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) with Buy ratings. In an uncertain environment, Deutsche favors “high-quality compounders” with consistent sales growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow generation.
• HSBC initiated coverage of CoreWeave (CRWV) with a Reduce rating and $32 price target, which implies 77% downside in the shares. While the company’s graphics processing unit-focused cloud is purpose-built for artificial intelligence, GPU clouds are increasingly commoditized with relatively low returns, the firm tells investors in a research note.
• Macquarie initiated coverage of CrowdStrike (CRWD) with a Neutral rating and $465 price target. The firm believes the company’s product strategy can continue to drive sales momentum and competitive differentiation, but says valuation “looks rich on a variety of metrics” at current share levels.
• JPMorgan resumed coverage of HP Enterprise (HPE) with an Overweight rating and $30 price target following a period of restriction, and added the shares to its Analyst Focus List. HP’s acquisition of Juniper establishes it as one of the largest networking companies with one of the broadest portfolios encompassing switches, wireless access point and routers, the firm tells investors in a research note.