Market Domination host Josh Lipton and Yahoo Finance senior reporter Allie Canal track several of the day’s top trending stock tickers, including Guggenheim analysts giving Microsoft (MSFT) an upgrade, Robinhood Markets (HOOD) stock rising as Compass Point raises its price target on the stock, and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) receiving a downgrade to Underperform by KBW analysts.
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00:00 Speaker A
Our Finance is Alec now, join me here for a look at Microsoft, Robin Hood and Berkshire. We’re going to start off with Microsoft. That’s stock getting an upgrade over at Guggenheim ahead of the tech giants’ quarterly results this week. So Guggenheim upgrades this one Allie to buy.
00:19 Speaker A
analyst saying at a time when investors struggle to separate AI beneficiaries from AI casualties, it’s clear to us that Microsoft along with other hyperscalers, cloud giants is a beneficiary. Bloomberg noting by the way, Wall Street now almost universally bullish on this name. I think 99%.
00:41 Allie
99%.
00:41 Speaker A
99% of analysts say you should buy this stock. None recommend selling it.
00:48 Allie
Yeah, only one hold out. Hedgi risk management, which stays neutral. But I mean, pretty astounding here, especially when you look at the optimism across the board when it comes to AI, when it comes to big tech. If you take a look at some year-to-date action, Microsoft is up 26% since the start of the year. You have Alphabet, Nvidia, each up 42%. Uh, even Apple, which has been a laggard among the Big Tech Meg 7 players due to some question marks about its AI strategy. That is up 7% on the year, thanks to its iPhone demand and that upgrade cycle surprising to the upside. Meta up 30%. I mean, these gains are truly astounding. However, that’s also the market’s biggest vulnerabilities, right? Because you have stocks at record highs, you have this rise from the top since the terror flows that we saw in April. And when the rally is being held by just a handful of these mega cap names, as we head into earning season, there’s any downside surprises when it comes to growth or commentary on the earnings call, that is going to hit equities, but something to watch as we continue to hear from a lot of these big players this week into the upcoming months. um to really see if we can maintain the momentum that we’ve seen and keep these record highs.
02:08 Speaker A
All right, we’ll find out soon enough. All right, turn now to Robin Hood, that stock gets a price target lift over at Compass point that firm citing revenue growth from equity transactions. Uh our own Ezprey has a good write up here. analysts a compass point, they raise their price target on shares to 161. They say revenue growth from equity transactions, they talk about prediction markets, crypto fees, expect the company to disclose October trends pacing well above Q4 expectations.
02:45 Allie
Yeah, across the board here, trading activity remains strong. You mentioned equities, options, crypto, but the real story is that explosive growth within these prediction markets. Users can wager the outcomes of sports games, government shutdowns, Bitcoin prices, and Compass Point expects Robin Hood to generate roughly 20 million in Q3 revenue from that business alone, and that is double from last quarter. Uh the uh firm also saying that it could hit 50 million next quarter with the NFL season boosting engagement there as well. Uh so overall, you take a look at this stock. We’ve just seen quite the run-up and shares.
03:26 Speaker A
It’s up 300% this year.
03:27 Allie
300% this year. That’s crazy. And remember that Robin Hood just joined the S&P 500 last month. So really sort of uh signaling that it’s no longer a meme stock anymore. It’s it’s a serious player and it has a lot of growth levers as well.
03:45 Speaker A
Up about 300% this year and still most on the street say it’s a buy. All right, finally last year, Berkshire Hathaway gets hit with a downgrade amid concerns over its earnings outlook. So KBW cuts the rating uh to underperform, so a sell that is always going to make headlines when you’re talking about Berkshire. Many things moving in the wrong direction they say beyond our ongoing concerns surrounding macro uncertainty and Berkshire’s historically unique succession risk, they think the shares will underperform as earnings, they say challenges emerge and or persist.
04:24 Allie
Yeah, across multiple earning uh multiple units when it comes to some of those earnings challenges from Geico where margins may have peaked to Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which could feel tariff-related and tax credit pressures. You mentioned succession and that is a big question mark across the board. How does Berkshire Hathaway operate and perform post Warren Buffett. And this firm basically saying that we don’t have enough information at this point to be confident in that. The price target $700,000 a share, that implies about 5% downside from Friday’s close.
05:01 Speaker A
When the torch formally passes on January 1st, big, big day on the calendar. Thank you, Allie, appreciate it.
