Dollar General, BMY, PRU, MET, Snowflake Trending With Analysts

Analysts are intrested in these 5 stocks: ( (DG) ), ( (BMY) ), ( (PRU) ), ( (MET) ) and ( (SNOW) ). Here is a breakdown of their recent ratings and the rationale behind them.

Dollar General is back in favor with Wall Street, as J.P. Morgan’s Matthew Boss has upgraded the stock to Buy (Overweight) and sharply lifted his price target to $166. His thesis is that Dollar General is “back on offense” after a management roadshow, with earnings power he models above current market expectations. Boss sees the company as a steady growth story, targeting about 10% annual earnings growth over time, supported by a combination of modest sales increases and improving profitability. At around 20 times his 2027 earnings estimate, he still values the stock below the average of other high-quality “consistent compounders,” suggesting room for multiple expansion if execution continues.

Behind the rating change is a belief that same-store sales – a key retail metric – can grow at 2–3% a year for several years. Boss assumes 2.5% growth in his base case, but he sees upside as Dollar General leans into better merchandising, more productive remodels, and initiatives like the low-price “Value Valley” offering. Management is already seeing strong results from seasonal goods and Value Valley, which was comping at a high single-digit pace in the latest quarter. On top of that, store expansion and renovations should add to growth, while upgrades in private label, health and beauty, and digital media help lift margins.

Boss also highlights a powerful customer mix shift that could sustain traffic. Dollar General’s core low-income shopper is still “gainfully employed,” particularly in service roles less exposed to automation risk, and remains focused on value amid stubborn inflation. At the same time, more middle-income consumers are trading into the chain to stretch their budgets, and higher-income households – especially those earning over $100,000 – are trading down for everyday basics. This higher-income group is now Dollar General’s fastest-growing customer segment, supported by massive wealth creation in the broader economy and the retailer’s efforts to improve in-stock levels and store experience.

Macro tailwinds could further support the story in 2026. Boss references the potential impact of a so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA) policy package, which could mean no taxes on tips and overtime, effectively boosting take-home pay for many of Dollar General’s core customers and enhancing their spending power. Combined with expected tax refunds averaging above $1,000, this could provide an extra nudge to discretionary purchases in the first half of 2026. In that environment, Boss believes the retailer can expand gross margins primarily by reducing shrink and damages, while gaining modest leverage on operating costs.

Putting it all together, J.P. Morgan sees Dollar General generating 12–13% annual earnings growth in 2026–2027, with the potential to deliver more than $1 billion in free cash flow each year after dividends. Boss even sketches out a scenario where earnings power reaches above $11 per share in 2028, roughly 30% above current Street estimates. For investors, the message is clear: the stock is being repositioned as a steady, defensive compounder with multiple levers for growth and profitability, and the new Buy rating reflects renewed confidence that management can execute on this roadmap.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has also moved back into the spotlight as Bank of America’s Jason Gerberry upgrades the shares to Buy, lifting his price objective to $61 from $52. Trading at one of the lowest valuations in the large-cap pharma sector, BMY is being reframed as a classic “pipeline overhang” opportunity: the market is focused on looming patent expirations and doesn’t yet fully credit the breadth of its late-stage research portfolio. Gerberry applies a modest 10x price-to-earnings multiple to his 2027 estimate, up from 8x on 2026 earnings, signaling that he believes the company can clear key R&D hurdles and set the stage for a new growth cycle into the next decade.

The crux of the Buy call is that 2026 will be catalyst-rich, with four to six major clinical and regulatory events that could meaningfully de-risk the pipeline. Among them, the Phase 3 trial of admilparant in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) stands out. It’s a large and challenging disease area, but prior mid-stage data for the drug’s LPA1 mechanism have been encouraging, and the ongoing trial has not flagged safety issues so far. If the late-stage data holds up, admilparant could become a sizable franchise in an area of high unmet medical need.

Another potential swing factor is milvexian, a next-generation blood thinner aimed at stroke prevention in conditions like atrial fibrillation. Gerberry notes that recent updates from competitors have helped de-risk the broader Factor XIa drug class, improving confidence that BMY’s approach can work. A key readout expected in late 2026 will be closely watched by investors, as success in both secondary prevention and atrial fibrillation could open a very large market opportunity. On top of this, Bristol-Myers’ CELMoD programs in multiple myeloma, the Cobenfy Phase 3 ADEPT study, and additional data for pumitamig in triple-negative breast cancer all offer further upside optionality if results are strong.

Importantly, Gerberry is not sugarcoating the near term: he expects 2026 earnings to be roughly in line with Street estimates and acknowledges a high single-digit revenue decline driven by loss of exclusivity in the hematology-oncology portfolio and pressure on Eliquis from U.S. drug pricing reforms. Cost savings of about $1 billion help cushion the blow, keeping the projected EPS decline around 10%, but these near-term numbers are not the main reason to own the stock. Instead, he views the current earnings trough as a floor – a level from which future products can rebuild growth.

For investors, the risk–reward comes down to whether they believe Bristol-Myers’ pipeline can deliver enough successes to offset the patent cliff and reignite growth beyond 2029. Gerberry argues that with a sector-low valuation, a diversified set of late-stage bets, and a seven-year earnings outlook that looks roughly flat even on conservative assumptions, the downside appears limited while the upside from just a few pipeline wins could be substantial. His upgrade signals that, in his view, the balance has shifted in favor of taking that bet.

Prudential Financial is getting fresh coverage from Mizuho’s Yaron Kinar, who begins with a Hold (Neutral) rating and a $125 price target. His stance reflects a nuanced view: Prudential is strongly positioned in the retirement market and boasts a diversified business model, yet it faces meaningful near- to midterm headwinds that could weigh on earnings momentum. Kinar values the stock at roughly 8.8 times forward earnings, slightly below the broader life insurance peer group, and applies an additional discount for the time value of money to reflect the firm’s estimated cost of equity.

On the positive side, Prudential stands out for its “full retirement stack” – it manufactures retirement products (both individual and group annuities), distributes them through its own channels, manages the underlying assets via its fully owned asset manager PGIM, and even uses reinsurance structures to manage risk and capital. This end-to-end platform positions the company to benefit from powerful long-term trends: an aging population, shrinking government and employer pensions, and rising demand for guaranteed income in retirement. Retirement-related growth is a core part of Kinar’s long-term positive outlook for the company.

However, the near term looks more complicated. Prudential is dealing with outflows from variable annuity products and elevated surrender rates in Japan, both of which act as a drag on reported earnings. Alongside these issues, the company’s free cash flow (FCF) conversion target – how much of its accounting profit turns into actual cash available for shareholders – looks weaker than peers once you adjust for accounting differences. Management targets 65% FCF conversion off GAAP net income, but historically net income has been significantly lower than operating income, which is the benchmark most peers use.

When Kinar re-bases Prudential’s FCF conversion to operating income, he estimates a more modest 40–50% range versus an average of about 63% for comparable insurers. That translates into a roughly 6% FCF yield on the current share price using his 2026 estimates – respectable, but not obviously compelling relative to others in the group. He models around 6–7% normalized earnings growth for 2026 and 2027, which is solid but still trails his broader coverage universe, where he expects average growth closer to 11%.

The upshot is that Kinar sees Prudential as a quality name with attractive long-term exposure to the retirement opportunity, but one where investors may need to be patient as short-term headwinds slowly fade. His Neutral rating leaves the door open to becoming more constructive if variable annuity and Japan pressures subside and if cash generation improves closer to peer levels. For now, though, he views the stock as fairly valued, balancing a strong strategic position against the reality of slower expected earnings growth.

MetLife, by contrast, earns a more enthusiastic reception from the same analyst. Yaron Kinar initiates coverage with a Buy (Outperform) rating and a $101 price target, highlighting MetLife’s favorable positioning in several growth markets and its potential for both earnings expansion and a rerating of the shares. He bases his target on a 9.5x forward price-to-earnings multiple – still slightly below the industry group but comfortably above the stock’s recent trading history – reflecting confidence in rising returns on equity and robust cash generation.

Kinar is particularly upbeat on MetLife’s strong franchises in U.S. group benefits and institutional retirement solutions, where the company ranks as the #1 and #2 provider, respectively. These businesses tap into secular trends similar to Prudential’s – employers and institutions seeking help to manage benefits and retirement obligations – but with a higher return profile and lower capital intensity. In Latin America, MetLife is also positioned to grow, adding another leg to the story. The analyst expects these segments to gain market share and drive an increasingly attractive business mix over time.

A key part of the bull case is improving profitability and capital efficiency. Kinar models normalized earnings growth of 12% in 2026 and 16% in 2027, both ahead of consensus, and projects that MetLife’s adjusted return on equity will reach roughly 17.6% by 2027, above management’s own five-year target range. He sees further upside as the low-return MetLife Holdings segment continues to shrink, freeing up capital for higher-return opportunities and shareholder returns. Management’s target of 65–75% FCF conversion underscores the expectation that a large share of profits will be returned to investors, including via share buybacks that Kinar believes could reduce the share count by about 10% over two years.

Another potential catalyst is the planned reclassification of MetLife Investment Management (MIM), its asset management arm, into a separate reporting segment once the PineBridge acquisition closes, expected by the end of 2025. Asset managers typically command higher valuation multiples than life insurers, and Kinar estimates MIM could manage around $700 billion in assets and contribute about $350 million in earnings. By making this business more visible, MetLife could benefit from a “valuation arbitrage,” where investors assign a higher multiple to MIM’s earnings than to the rest of the company, boosting the overall market value.

By applying a sum-of-the-parts valuation and discounting for the cost of equity, Kinar arrives at his $101 price target, implying upside from current levels. For investors, his message is that MetLife combines strong franchise positions, accelerating earnings, improving returns, and clear catalysts – including portfolio mix shifts and better segment disclosure – that could help unlock value. In his view, the stock merits a premium to its own history and stands out as one of the more compelling growth-and-cash-return stories in the life insurance space.

Snowflake rounds out the analyst action with a bullish initiation from Raymond James, where coverage is being assumed by Simon Leopold with a Buy (Outperform) rating and a $250 price target. While the target is slightly lower than a prior $274 level, Leopold still values Snowflake at a premium to most software peers, using roughly 17 times his 2027 revenue estimate. His stance reflects a belief that Snowflake remains one of the most strategically important platforms in the data and AI ecosystem, even as investors debate the durability of its growth and margins.

Central to the Snowflake story is the push into artificial intelligence. The company’s AI-related products have already surpassed an annualized revenue run rate of $100 million, and the key question is whether these tools can significantly increase customer spending on the platform. Leopold argues that the breadth of Snowflake’s AI suite – from model development to deployment – gives it a real chance to deepen its role inside large enterprises. Investors will be watching closely to see how AI contributes to overall product growth, whether gross margins hold up as GPU-heavy workloads expand, and whether customers meaningfully increase their usage.

Snowflake is also pursuing a strategy of platform convergence, aiming to bring together structured, semi-structured, unstructured, and transactional data workloads in one environment while enabling application development through offerings like Snowpark, container services, and native apps. This puts it in direct competition with Databricks, which is moving in the opposite direction – from AI and machine learning into data warehousing and analytics. Leopold frames this as a battle to become the primary data and AI operating system for large companies, with investors focused on metrics like Global 2000 customer penetration, net revenue retention, and win rates in competitive deals.

At the same time, Snowflake’s consumption-based pricing model remains a double-edged sword. It allows customers to scale usage flexibly, but it also makes revenue sensitive to optimization efforts, as organizations constantly try to control cloud spending. The company has responded by building tools to automate cost management and improve credit consumption efficiency, yet questions persist about whether usage growth can re-accelerate or will settle at lower levels than in the early hypergrowth years. Leopold modestly trims his 2026 revenue and earnings estimates, but still sees strong top-line expansion and improving free cash flow margins over time.

Finally, Snowflake’s embrace of open formats like Apache Iceberg and its Polaris catalog is intended to reduce friction for customers in multi-engine, multi-cloud environments. While this should help win new users and workloads, it also reduces vendor lock-in, potentially making it easier for workloads to move off the platform. Add in complex relationships with the big cloud providers – AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud – who are both partners and competitors, and the investment case becomes nuanced. Leopold’s Outperform rating signals confidence that Snowflake can navigate these trade-offs, maintain differentiation, and emerge as a long-term winner in the data and AI infrastructure market despite the very real debates around growth, margins, and competitive dynamics.