Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: Goldman Sachs initiates TechnipFMC as buy Goldman says the offshore company has “idiosyncratic growth.” “We are initiating coverage on FTI with a Buy rating and $38 price target, implying 23% upside from current levels.” Goldman Sachs upgrades Patterson-UTI Energy to buy from neutral The firm says it sees shareholder returns for the energy company. “For North America exposure, we are upgrading PTEN to Buy given its total of ~11% between shareholder returns and revisions vs North America average of ~7%.” KeyBanc upgrades Salesforce to overweight from sector weight and downgrades ServiceNow to sector weight from overweight The firm says it’s seeing more positive data points for Salesforce right now. “The biggest moves in our ratings are the upgrading of Salesforce to Overweight and the downgrade of ServiceNow to Sector Weight.” DA Davidson initiates Titan International as buy DA Davidson said it sees a “rare” buying opportunity for the industry leader in heavy-equipment tires and wheels. “We are initiating coverage of Titan International (TWI) with a BUY rating and $11 price target.” Needham upgrades Upstart to buy from hold Needham says it likes the AI lending platform company’s balance sheet following earnings. “Coming off the meetings, we believe that UPST has achieved a proper balance in funding, largely due to the increased appetite and partnerships with committed capital buyers.” Bank of America upgrades Danaher to buy from neutral Bank of America says it sees a compelling entry point for the medical device company. “For Danaher , the recent pullback has created a more attractive entry point, and we believe shares may outperform in 2025 as bioprocess recovery takes center stage.” Bank of America reiterates Broadcom as buy The firm says it sees a “surging” AI opportunity for the stock following earnings on Thursday. “We rate Broadcom Buy due to its high-quality diversified exposure to secular product cycles in the smartphone, cloud data center, telecom and enterprise storage markets.” Goldman Sachs initiates E.l.f. Beauty as buy Goldman says it has a positive view of the beauty industry. “We highlight ELF in this context as a name to own, while maintaining a more balanced view on COTY as we work to better understand the path to sustained topline growth improvement.” Morgan Stanley reiterates Apple as overweight The firm says it’s a top pick in 2025. “Apple remains our Top Pick heading into 2025, and we remain bullish on: 1) Apple Intelligence accelerating iPhone replacement cycles starting in FY26 2) Services growth sustaining at double digits; and 3) gross margins expanding.” UBS upgrades Centene to buy from neutral UBS says the health-care stock is “too cheap to ignore.” “We are upgrading CNC to a Buy as we see the stock as overly discounted with the company now having offered a clear and conservative view on the headwinds related to the possible loss of enhanced subsidies related to the public exchange after 2025. Further, management also laid out other building blocks related to Medicaid and Medicare that creates a path toward $8.00 in 2026 EPS.” KeyBanc upgrades Viper Energy to overweight from sector weight The firm says the setup is attractive for the energy company. “With OPEC+ oil volatility fading as a risk, at least for three more months, we upgrade VNOM shares to OW and establish a $62 PT. Despite strong YTD performance..” Goldman Sachs reiterates Uber as buy The firm says the ride-sharing company is a best idea in 2025. “Our top pick for 2025 among our Large Cap coverage ($50bn+ market cap) is Uber. Uber is mired in a series of short-term debates (pricing inflation and competition impact on mobility growth) and medium/long term industry concerns.” Mizuho reiterates Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe as outperform The firm says the Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe are top ideas in 2025. “We believe the most important trends benefiting software vendors today and in the future are Digital Transformation, Generative AI (including Agentic AI), Data and Analytics, Contact Center Cloud Migrations, DevOps, Next-Gen Security, and EDA [electronic design automation].” BMO initiates O’Reilly Automotive as outperform BMO says the auto parts company is a “share taker.” “We are initiating coverage of O’Reilly Automotive (ORLY-NSDQ) with an Outperform rating and $1,400 target price.” Wolfe upgrades PayPal to outperform from peer perform Wolfe says it sees “upside potential.” “We are upgrading shares of PYPL to Outperform from Peer Perform with a YE25 PT of $107.” Morgan Stanley upgrades PTC Therapeutics to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley says the biotech company is a favorite idea heading into 2025. “We believe PTCT is well-positioned heading into the new year following multiple recent positive updates, in contrast to headwinds the company faced at the end of 2023.” Morgan Stanley upgrades TaskUS to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley says the outsourcing company is an AI beneficiary. “Upgrading TASK to OW as we view the stock as an attractively valued AI beneficiary with exposure to key customers Meta and Open AI, which we expect to drive accelerating growth in ’25 and ’26. Morgan Stanley upgrades Sempra Energy to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley says the utility company is “best positioned at the heart of data center demand and industrial load growth..” “We think SRE’s EPS growth could surprise to the upside with the strong Texas tailwinds. We are increasing our ’26 EPS estimate to $5.55 (from $5.48) driven by increasing capex in Texas…” Mizuho initiates Canadian Solar as outperform Mizuho says the solar company has tremendous growth. “We initiate on Canadian Solar (CSIQ) with an Outperform rating and $20 price target. Canadian Solar is a perennial top-5 manufacturer of solar cells and modules globally; its battery energy storage business is growing faster than the industry, and its Recurrent business develops solar and storage projects.” JPMorgan downgrades DR Horton to underweight from neutral and Toll Brothers to neutral from overweight JPMorgan downgraded several homebuilders and says it’s taking a more “cautious stance.” “We downgrade DHI to Underweight from Neutral, as we expect the stock to underperform its peers over the next 12 months, based on our view that its relative valuation is expensive compared to our relative fundamental outlook. … .We downgrade TOL to Neutral from Overweight, as following the stock’s strong outperformance in 2024, up 35% vs. our universe’s average 12% gain, we view its relative valuation as fairly reflecting our relative fundamental outlook.” Barclays upgrades Norwegian to overweight from equal weight The firm says Norwegian Cruise Line is well positioned in 2025. “We think the Cruise recovery is in its 6th or 7th inning and expect another year of share outperformance in 2025, driven by outsized pricing power from excess demand, decelerating supply, upward estimate revisions, and deleveraging/capital return announcements, and on the basis that valuation is still undemanding on a reasonable upside case for earnings.” JPMorgan initiates MKS Instruments as overweight JPMorgan says the controlling device and measuring manufacturing company is well positioned. “We initiate coverage on MKS Instruments (MKSI, $7B market cap) with an OW rating and a Dec 2025 price target of $145, implying 25%+ upside potential.” JPMorgan names DraftKings as top pick JPMorgan says DraftKings is the “the pure-play in the most attractive growth market in Gaming..” “We reaffirm our Overweight rating and raise our year-end 2025 PT to $53 (from $47). Bank of America upgrades General Mills to buy from neutral Bank of America said in its upgrade of the stock that it sees an acceleration in pet food growth. “We upgrade General Mills to Buy from Neutral and raise PO to $80 now based on 17x CY26E EPS (prior CY25). We expect GIS to return to organic sales growth at a faster and more sustainable rate vs center-store food peers driven by 1) re-acceleration in Pet (Blue Buffalo), 2) stabilization in NA Retail (NAR) as dynamics in dough move into rear view.” Bank of America upgrades Ciena to buy from neutral Bank of America said in its upgrade of Ciena that it sees better-than-expected growth for the networking company. “However, trends are turning out better than we expected, with stabilizing demand at North American Service Providers (SPs), and Hyperscalers’ AI bandwidth needs driving accelerated order momentum. JPMorgan upgrades Penn to overweight from neutral The firm says Penn is too attractive to ignore right now. “We presently see a favorable risk-reward, with sightline to a bottoming of its regional land-based-casino cashflow generation with a path to aggregate growth given $850m of investments into its 4 retail growth projects beginning to bear fruit and ultimately generating attractive double-digit cash-on-cash returns beginning in 2H25 and later into 2026.” Mizuho reiterates Nvidia as outperform Mizuho says it’s sticking with its outperform rating on Nvidia. “While we expect countless tech vendors will leverage core Generative AI technologies to benefit their businesses (to varying degrees), the technology companies that have invested heavily in developing their internal AI research and development teams and consider themselves AI-first companies will be among the big players pushing the boundaries of innovation.” Goldman Sachs reiterates Costco as buy Goldman says it’s sticking with the stock following earnings on Thursday. “We continue to have confidence in COST’ s value proposition resonating with consumers, and we reiterate our Buy rating with an updated 12-month price target of $1,052.”
