Institutional investors and professional traders rely on The Fly to learn which companies the best analysts on Wall Street are saying to buy and sell.

Research analysts at Wall Street's largest banks issue recommendations on whether a stock should be bought, held, or sold. The Fly's team of financial market experts scours hundreds of research notes daily to uncover the best trading ideas. Check out today's top analyst calls from around Wall Street, compiled by The Fly.

Top 5 Upgrades:

• DA Davidson analyst Christopher Brendler upgraded Affirm (AFRM) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $75, down from $110. The analyst contends that the selloff in the stock is "overdone" and he is bullish heading into the company's results, with industry data suggesting that the U.S. buy-now-pay-later usage has more than doubled this holiday season.
  
• RBC Capital analyst Steven Shemesh upgraded Williams-Sonoma (WSM) to Outperform from Sector Perform with a price target of $202, down from $219. Shemesh believes there is enough top-line flex to comfortably deliver on consensus EPS even if margins are modestly weaker than expected.
• JPMorgan analyst Bill Peterson upgraded ChargePoint (CHPT) to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $20, down from $26. The analyst sees a good opportunity for investors following the stock's recent pullback.
• Stifel analyst Benjamin Burnett upgraded Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA) to Buy from Hold with a price target of $25, up from $23. The analyst views the hire of Dr. Raj Puri as a "vote of confidence from someone knowledgeable of the potency assay situation."
• Citi analyst Paul Lejuez upgraded Tapestry (TPR) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $48, down from $50. Tapestry is an "attractive, strong" free cash flow story that has been over-penalized during the recent drop in many retail stocks, Lejuez tells investors in a research note.
  

Top 5 Downgrades:

• Citi analyst Paul Lejuez downgraded Kroger (KR) to Sell from Neutral with a price target of $42, down from $47. The company has been viewed as a defensive name within retail, but this does not reflect the risks Kroger faces in 2022 and beyond, Lejuez tells investors in a research note.
  
• Stifel analyst Brian Chin downgraded Teradyne (TER) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $115, down from $160. Chin tells investors that he is "not throwing in the towel" and continues to back Teradyne's dual growth strategy in test and industrial automation, but acknowledges that the path to achieve the estimates that he based his prior valuation upon will be steeper. Deutsche Bank analyst Sidney Ho also downgraded Teradyne to Hold from Buy with a price target of $120, down from $170.
• Odeon Capital analyst Dick Bove downgraded Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), both to Hold from Buy, citing his concerns about the Fed's stated plans for its balance sheet.
• Deutsche Bank analyst Pito Chickering downgraded Quest Diagnostics (DGX) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $129, down from $190, as he is concerned that core lab margins are declining due to both labor and reagent costs, but that this has been "impossible to see" due to the tailwinds from COVID testing. Chickering also downgraded LabCorp (LH) to Hold, citing the same concerns.
• Seaport Global analyst Mark Weintraub downgraded International Paper (IP) to Neutral from Buy. Without additional pricing, International Paper would need to deliver considerable operational improvement to meet estimates, Weintraub tells investors in a research note.
  

Top 5 Coverage Initiations:

• RBC Capital analyst Steven Shemesh initiated coverage of Walmart (WMT) with an Outperform rating and $160 price target. Shemesh's positive bias is being driven by the belief that consumer demand throughout 2022 will remain elevated relative to historical levels, and that Walmart is among the best positioned in the space to offset the impact of inflation, the analyst tells investors in a research note. 
• BofA analyst Michael Funk reinstated coverage of Twilio (TWLO) with a Buy rating and $250 price target. As a pioneer and leader in the Communications Platform as a Service, or CPaaS, market, Twilio is poised for sustainable 30%-plus top-line growth for five-plus years, putting it on a path to $6.5B in revenue in FY24, Funk contends.
  
• Oppenheimer analyst Matthew Biegler initiated coverage of Celularity (CELU) with an Outperform rating and $9 price target. He expresses "enthusiasm" for the company's unique allogeneic approach to cancer cell therapy, telling investors that Celularity has "perfected" methods that turn donor's oft-discarded placentas into a scalable source of off-the-shelf NK and T-cell therapies.
• Jefferies analyst Jonathan Petersen initiated coverage of Marathon Digital (MARA) with a Buy rating and $51 price target and sees it being on pace to become the largest public Bitcoin miner on an EH/s basis in 2022.
• UBS analyst Chris Snyder initiated coverage of QuantumScape (QS) with a Neutral rating and $18 price target. The analyst is positive on the company's leading position in solid-state battery technology that is looking to disrupt a $300B market as well as its auto OEM relationships, though he is still awaiting QuantumScape's checkpoints on commercialization.