(This is CNBC Pro’s live coverage of Thursday’s analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) A fast food stock and Nvidia were among the stocks being talked about by analysts on Wall Street. RBC assumed coverage of Jack in the Box with an outperform rating and a price target that implies more than 40% upside. Meanwhile, analysts at Piper Sandler, Citi and New Street Research gave their Nvidia earnings previews. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 7:26 a.m.: JPMorgan hikes target for Palo Alto ahead of earnings Cybersecurity stock Palo Alto Networks could be ready for a rebound when it reports earnings next week, according to JPMorgan. Analyst Brian Essex hiked his price target on the stock to $340 per share from $330, saying in a note to clients that Palo Alto’s business appears to be improving. “Billings performance has disappointed three quarters in a row. The company significantly cut FY24 guidance last quarter (by $600mm), citing weak federal business and a more aggressive campaign to drive share consolidation on its platform. However, channel conversations have generally implied healthy performance from PANW this quarter, aided by a large renewal in the healthcare vertical and activity to date in F4Q,” the note said. Shares of Palo Alto Networks are down about 17% from their all-time high in early February. JPMorgan’s new price target is about 8% above where the shares closed on Wednesday. The firm has an overweight rating on Palo Alto. The cyber company will report its fiscal third quarter earnings on Monday. — Jesse Pound 7:09 a.m.: GoodRx has a favorable growth story and attractive valuation, according to Raymond James Raymond James upgraded healthcare company GoodRx to outperform from market perform following the company’s inaugural investor day on Wednesday. “We leave incrementally positive on the stock given GDRX’s reaccelerating revenue, improving margins, more focused business strategy, and attractive valuation…all in all, we view the growth story here favorably with potential upside to numbers,” analyst John Ransom said in a Thursday note, adding that he views 2024 guidance as conservative. Ransom’s $10 price target implies about 37.6% potential upside for the stock, which has gained 8.5% this year. According to the analyst, GoodRx’s new management has prioritized creating a symbiotic relationship with its retail network, as seen in its new contract with grocery store chain Kroger, which “symbolizes the turnaround” at the company. In pharma, GoodRx also has upside opportunities from GLP-1s and specialty drugs he added. — Pia Singh 6:40 a.m.: Evercore ISI raises price target on Dell, points to Tesla as new AI customer Dell has a broad AI opportunity ahead of itself, according to Evercore ISI. Amit Daryanani reiterated his outperform rating and raised his price target by $14 to $160, implying shares could jump more than 7% over the next year. Dell’s shares have skyrocketed nearly 95% this year. DELL YTD mountain DELL year to date According to the analyst, Dell has “won a sizable amount of storage attach” in addition to AI servers that could ship in conjunction with AI server shipments, and has also gotten a large amount of business for Tesla’s AI server buildout. The company offers a strong AI infrastructure stack—including storage, servers and services—which he said is seeing accelerating demand and is underappreciated by investors. “Dell continues to pick up traction for AI servers, and more importantly AI attach. This should help support a structural lift to Dell’s underlying top line growth rate from 3-4% to MSD over the next few years,” Daryanani said in a Thursday note. — Pia Singh 6:23 a.m.: Wolfe Research upgrades Intel to peer perform, says its cautious thesis has ‘played out’ Lower sentiment and weak earnings power are handicapping Intel , but Wolfe Research still sees a longer-term recovery for shares. Analyst Chris Caso upgraded shares to peer perform, saying the stock’s “underperform thesis has played out.” Caso’s $29 price target, which implies shares can lose 7.3%, was unchanged. Caso said Intel needs to see much higher revenue growth to drive margins and earnings to the necessary targets, in order to drive returns on the company’s significant spending levels related to its “five nodes in four years” turnaround strategy. “The main element of that cautious thesis is that server CPU growth is simply not enough to pay for the enormous CapeEx/depreciation required for INTC’s 5N4Y manufacturing strategy,” the analyst wrote in a Thursday note. “That said, this is now part of investor expectations, and we do expect some incremental GM improvement in CY25 as startup costs decline and as INTC begins to take more tiles in house, albeit modestly.” Intel shares are down about 37.8% this year, significantly underperforming its tech peers and the broader market. — Pia Singh 6:05 a.m.: UBS upgrades Korean e-commerce leader Coupang to buy Investors shouldn’t overlook online marketplace Coupang’s growth potential, even in a saturated market that has increasing competition, according to UBS. Analyst Jennifer Han upgraded the stock to buy from neutral and raised her price target by $7.50 to $26, suggesting 15.5% potential upside. This year, Coupang shares have advanced roughly 39%. “We view Coupang as a leader in the US$124bn Korea e-commerce market with a 29% market share which we expect to increase to 43% by 2026,” Han wrote in a Thursday note. “Our analysis suggests that the market may be underestimating Coupang’s capabilities, overlooking its expanding portfolio and strong logistics network.” Han forecasted a 21% gross merchandise value CAGR, or compound annual growth rate, between 2023 and the end of 2026 that’s driving her above-consensus revenue forecast. Long term, the analyst believes Coupang could continue to improve its adjusted EBITDA margin of above 10% with ongoing improvement in operational efficiency, scale, and automation. — Pia Singh 5:41 a.m.: Analysts are bullish going into Nvidia earnings Analysts are optimistic ahead of Nvidia’s first-quarter earnings set to release after the closing bell next Wednesday. Piper Sandler’s Harsh Kumar remains bullish on the chipmaker’s earnings and expects demand for Nvidia’s new Blackwell GPU series to be strong across its data center customer base. He kept his overweight rating and $1,050 price target, which suggests nearly 11% potential upside. “We continue to see strong demand for NVDA’s data center products and feel the company is set up for another beat and raise quarter,” Kumar said, adding that his bull case sees total revenues potentially beating current expectations by between $1.5 and $2 billion. “NVDA remains our top large-cap pick and we remain bullish that the Blackwell series will provide meaningful acceleration to revenues longer-term.” Citi analyst Atif Malik expects in-line sales of $24 billion compared to the Street’s forecast and called for shorter H100 lead times and gross margin normalization before GB200 volume ramps in the first half of 2025. Mailk said he likes the buy-rated stock on “secular AI growth opportunities” and maintained his $1,030 price target. New Street Research maintained its buy rating and $1,100 price target ahead of the quarterly print. Analyst Pierre Ferragu suggested that high bandwidth memory sales growing by more than 50% in 2025 likely implies that AI chip revenues will also double, fueling his Nvidia thesis. Nvidia shares are up more than 91% this year. — Pia Singh 5:41 a.m.: RBC says Jack in the Box to surge more than 40% This year’s big pullback in Jack in the Box offers a big buying opportunity for investors, according to RBC Capital Markets. The bank assumed coverage of the fast food chain with an outperform rating. Its price target of $75 implies upside of 44% over the next 12 months. Analyst Logan Reich pointed to three reasons for the positive outlook on the stock: “1) new markets continue to perform well supporting [long-term] unit growth; 2) new menu items & digital innovation should drive an [same-store sales] inflection in 2H24 into 2025 and 3) valuation looks attractive at 22% below its 5-year average.” Shares of Jack in the Box have struggled this year, losing more than 34%. JACK YTD mountain JACK in 2024 — Fred Imbert
Thursday’s analyst calls: Fast food stock to surge 40%, what to expect from Nvidia earnings
May 16, 2024
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