Check out today's top analyst calls from around Wall Street, compiled by The Fly.
VERIZON BOOSTED TO OUTPERFORM AT OPPENHEIMER: Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan upgraded Verizon (VZ) to Outperform from Perform, with a $70 price target, ahead of the T-Mobile (TMUS) and Sprint (S) merger as he believes both Verizon and AT&T (T) will benefit from elevated Sprint churn from the new company. Further, Horan argued that Verizon should be early and successful in its 5G network, and expects it to pick up a lot of mid-band spectrum inexpensively next year. Its ARPUs should continue growing, and strong cable wholesale growth is accretive, he added.
WW BOOSTED TO BUY AT CRAIG-HALLUM: Craig-Hallum analyst Alex Fuhrman upgraded WW (WW) to Buy from Hold and raised his price target to $35 from $25, saying he sees "improving trends" for the company with the positive reception of its Kurbo By WW launch and the upside potential of its new upcoming diet program launch. The analyst notes that after a weak diet season start earlier this year, member response has turned "much more positive", and the Google search count for the brand over the past few weeks suggest that the strong interest has continued. Fuhrman cites the company's "more effective" TV ad campaign in the spring and summer seasons and a "subtle" reintroduction of the Weight Watchers brand name.
MONGODB UPGRADED TO BUY, TOP PICK AT CITI: Citi analyst Tyler Radke upgraded MongoDB (MDB) to Buy from Neutral and raised his price target for the shares to $184 from $162. The shares have lagged high-growth peers the last six months on concerns around sustainability of growth, Radke noted. The analyst views the concerns as overdone, and said recent customer/partner checks point to signs of enterprise "Mongo standardization" and Atlas adoption within the enterprise. Further, MongoDB's developer traction is continuing to grow, which bodes well for the stock's near-term setup amid "very conservative" consensus estimates, added the analyst. While threats from cloud providers and Amazon Web Services (AMZN) is still a risk, continued success of Atlas and standardization as "general purpose DB" makes an existential threat increasingly less likely, said Radke, who calls MongoDB his new top pick.
RED ROBIN CUT TO UNDERPERFORM AT BOFA: BofA/Merrill analyst Gregory Francfort downgraded Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (RRGB) to Underperform from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $30. The analyst believes the company's earnings growth will "materially miss" consensus expectations in 2020. Red Robin's "sub-scale" brand and below-industry margins present challenges amid labor tightness and the growing importance of scale, Francfort told investors in a research note.
WILLIAM BLAIR SEES NETFLIX-LIKE GROWTH FOR ROKU: Roku's (ROKU) active account growth is tracking ahead of Netflix (NFLX) at parallel stages, William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart tells investors in a research note. The analyst, who believes Roku will experience similar phased stages of international growth as Netflix did during its international expansion, forecasts Roku will have over 80M active accounts by the end of 2025. Netflix's double-digit net subscriber additions beat consistently between 2015 and 2015, and Roku has a similar opportunity since the Street lagged Netflix's actual growth, and Roku's active growth is already tracking ahead of Netflix at a comparable stage, contended Schackart. He estimates Roku's consolidated platform revenue at $4.5B in 2025, 89% of which will be generated domestically. The analyst also thinks Roku's market capitalization in 2024 may reach $45B, and $27B in 2020 in a bull case. Schackart sees 100%-plus stock upside potential through 2024 for Roku. The analyst kept an Outperform rating on Roku shares.
