Boeing upgraded, Lockheed downgraded: 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:

• Melius Research upgraded Boeing (BA) to Buy from Hold with a $204 price target following the company’s win over Lockheed Martin (LMT) for the Air Force’s sixth-gen fighter program.
• Guggenheim upgraded Pinterest (PINS) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $40, up from $39. User-growth trends remain “healthy,” and the firm expects monetization of the user base to grow at above-market rates from 2025-27.
• Jefferies upgraded FedEx (FDX) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $275, down from $300. With the market “overly distracted by the macro,” the firm thinks investors are now ignoring the idiosyncratic cost transformations going on at FedEx that it thinks can lead to continued EPS growth in FY26 and FY27 regardless of the top line.
• Raymond James upgraded Coherent (COHR) to Strong Buy from Outperform with a price target of $91, down from $110, following Nvidia’s (NVDA) GTC keynote address and Corning’s analyst day meetings.
• Raymond James upgraded Lumentum (LITE) to Strong Buy from Outperform with a price target of $82, down from $96. Concerns over co-packaged optics are overblown, which has pressured the stock, and Raymond James’ datacom optical model indicates strong 800G demand.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Melius Research downgraded Lockheed Martin (LMT) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $483, down from $603. Boeing (BA) had a win over Lockheed on the Air Force’s sixth generation fighter program, the firm tells investors in a research note. BofA downgraded Lockheed Martin to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $485, down from $685, after the White House and U.S. Air Force announced that they selected Boeing over Lockheed as the winner of the USAF’s Next Generation Air Dominance program.
• Goldman Sachs downgraded Super Micro (SMCI) to Sell from Neutral with a price target of $32, down from $40. The firm now views Super Micro’s risk/reward as unfavorable, seeing downside risks on valuation, competition, and gross margins.
• Evercore ISI downgraded Lennar (LEN) to In Line from Outperform with a price target of $131, down from $159, following the fiscal Q1 report. The Q2 gross margin guide of 18% was lower than hoped for, and management indicated that it was due to incentives rising even further from Q1, the firm tells investors in a research note.
• BMO Capital downgraded Civitas Resources (CIVI) to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $42, down from $50. The shares pulled back following the Q4 results, and remain inexpensive on free cash flow yield, but Civitas needs a higher oil price to achieve a re-rating, the firm tells investors in a research note.
• Stephens downgraded Elevation Oncology (ELEV) to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $1, down from $5, following recent news regarding the discontinuation of development for EO-3021. The company has shifted focus to their in-house developed preclinical asset EO-1022, a HER3-targeting ADC, with preclinical data expected at the AACR Annual Meeting, the firm noted.

Top 5 Initiations:

• Seaport Research initiated coverage of Affirm (AFRM) with a Neutral rating and no price target. The firm acknowledges that Affirm is a “high-quality” buy now pay later provider “with plenty of greenfield ahead of it,” but says its earnings estimates are below the Street’s and it believes the shares will be “fairly rangebound.”
• Seaport Research initiated coverage of Chewy (CHWY) with a Neutral rating and no price target. The firm says U.S. pet growth is “relatively mature and has normalized post pandemic.”
• Morgan Stanley initiated coverage of BellRing Brands (BRBR) with an Overweight rating and $84 price target. The firm also named it as Top Pick, saying it believes the recent pullback creates a compelling entry point for a “scarce growth asset.” Morgan Stanley also started coverage of Mondelez (MDLZ), J.M. Smucker (SJM) Vital Farms (VITL) and Dutch Bros (BROS) with Overweight ratings.
• Macquarie initiated coverage of HubSpot (HUBS) with an Outperform rating and $730 price target, implying a 20% total shareholder return. The firm likes the company’s “sustainable” growth opportunity, fiscal 2025 revenue upside potential, and opportunities for operating margin improvement.
• Morgan Stanley initiated coverage of Hershey (HSY) with an Equal Weight rating and $183 price target. Earnings visibility is low with sales growth expected to “remain muted” given ongoing secular consumption headwinds and constrained pricing power while accelerating commodity inflation and continued need for reinvestment limits margin expansion potential, the firm tells investors in a research note. Morgan Stanley also started coverage of Conagra Brands (CAG), Simply Good Foods (SMPL) and Campbell’s (CPB) with Equal Weight ratings, and initiated General Mills (GIS), WK Kellogg (KLG) and Kraft Heinz (KHC) with Underweight ratings.