Morgan Stanley, Comerica upgraded: 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:

• Wells Fargo upgraded Morgan Stanley (blue‘>MS) to Equal Weight from Underweight with a price target of $142, up from $107, as part of a broader research note on Large-Cap banks. The firm cited the expected benefit of the U.S. elections driving a “15-year regulatory paradigm shift” and its upward bias to EPS estimates along with anticipated greater flexibility by banks to return and deploy capital and for a bank merger resurgence.
• Wells Fargo upgraded Comerica (CMA) to Equal Weight from Underweight with a price target of $73, up from $51. Comerica is one of the banks most oriented toward Commercial and Industrial lending growth, which could be better going forward, while a more favorable backdrop for bank industry consolidation should also benefit its shareholders, the firm says.
• Monness Crespi upgraded Twilio (TWLO) to Buy from Neutral with a $135 price target. Few software companies have experienced a “fall from grace as spectacular as Twilio” with the stock down 79% from its peak and holding the lowest enterprise-value-to-revenue multiple among the analyst’s coverage, but heading into 2025, the firm believes Twilio is on course to extend its recovery and argues that the stock’s valuation remains attractive.
• BofA upgraded Rocket Companies (RKT) to Neutral from Underperform with a $15 price target. With shares now trading “well below” the September peak, the firm thinks the valuation is “more palatable” and “nicely balanced” in terms of upside and downside risks, the analyst tells investors.
• Piper Sandler upgraded Bloom Energy (BE) to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $20, up from $10. The firm says the scale of the agreement with American Electric (AEP) provides proof of concept that Bloom’s product can be utilized to power large-scale datacenters and could open the door to future arrangements with other utilities.

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Morgan Stanley downgraded SolarEdge (SEDG) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $9, down from $23. The firm also reduced its industry view on clean technology to In-Line from Attractive, saying there is an added level of uncertainty in the market as to how the policy environment for renewables will change under the newly elected administration.
• JPMorgan downgraded Bluebird Bio (BLUE) to Underweight from Neutral without a price target post the Q3 report. Bluebird missed on sales and notably reduced its cash runway to into Q1 of 2025 from in Q2 of 2025, the analyst tells investors in a research note. BofA also downgraded Bluebird Bio to Neutral from Buy with a price target of 50c, down from $3.
• Evercore ISI downgraded DiamondRock (DRH) to In Line from Outperform with an unchanged price target of $10.50. DiamondRock reported group revenue pace of negative 3% year-over-year for 2025, noting a tough comp in convention markets of Chicago, Boston, and D.C., the analyst says.
• Deutsche Bank downgraded Alexandria Real Estate (ARE) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $112, down from $135. While the company’s Q3 results were in-line with consensus, and the fiscal 2024 guidance midpoint remained unchanged, Deutsche has become increasingly cautious about Alexandria’s earnings growth outlook into 2025, the analyst tells investors in a research note.
• Craig-Hallum downgraded Akoya Biosciences (AKYA) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $5, down from $7, citing increased concerns about macro level demand and a lack of visibility following the company’s Q3 report.

Top 5 Initiations:

• RBC Capital assumed coverage of Starbucks (SBUX) with an Outperform rating and $115 price target. The company has an opportunity to meaningfully re-accelerate the business and while investments will be a margin headwind in the near-term, RBC thinks a margin improvement in the second half of 2025 and into 2026 could be better than expected and thinks the long-term China opportunity remains large, the analyst says.
• Goldman Sachs resumed coverage of United Airlines (UAL) with a Buy rating and $119 price target. The firm forecasts that United will end 2024 with margins nearly at pre-pandemic levels, the highest rate of recovery of the mainline airline group.
• Wolfe Research initiated coverage of Regeneron (REGN) with an Outperform rating and $1,150 price target. Eylea patent litigation concerns had pressured Regeneron from all-time highs, and the firm sees its current share price at a “particularly attractive entry point, with limited downside risk.”
• Wolfe Research initiated coverage of Veracyte (VCYT) with an Outperform rating and $50 price target. Veracyte has evolved from being “a good product with solid science into a real company with a growth portfolio that has clearly become self-sustaining,” says the analyst, who expects continued high-single to low-double digit revenue growth and for EBITDA margins to move up to closer to 30% over the next five years.
• Goldman Sachs resumed coverage of Delta Air Lines (DAL) with a Buy rating and $83 price target. Delta is forecasted to produce one of the industry’s top margins in 2024, bolstered by its exposure to premium and corporate revenue strength, profitable and durable non-airline revenue streams, and longer-term tailwinds from its segmentation strategy, the analyst tells investors in a research note.