(This is CNBC Pro’s live coverage of Tuesday’s analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) A major cruise line operator and a bank in the Midwest were among the stocks being talked about by analysts on Tuesday. Mizuho raised its rating on Norwegian Cruise Line to buy from neutral. Meanwhile, JPMorgan upgraded Huntington Bancshares to overweight from neutral, with a price target that implies upside of 31%. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 5:50 a.m.: JMP upgrades Duolingo to outperform Duolingo’s growth potential could give it a leg up against its peers, according to JMP. Analyst Andrew Boone upgraded shares of the e-learning platform to market outperform from market perform. The analyst also set a $260 price target, which corresponds to a 46% upside from here. Boone cited the rollout of Duolingo Max, a new subscription tier, as a major catalyst for the company, alongside the optimization of its existing services. “After rolling out Max to 5%-10% of DAU in April, Duolingo plans to expand Max to more users in the coming months,” he wrote. “Additionally, Duolingo now has a dedicated team focused on improving Family Plan, which can be a meaningful driver of retention.” The analyst added that Duolingo plans to release a “conversational experience” as another reason for users to upgrade to the Max tier. Boone added that the company could find itself a beneficiary of artificial intelligence in the e-learning space. “With Duolingo’s differentiated language teaching also fun and engaging (making people ‘eat their broccoli’ of taking their daily language lessons and likely the hardest thing for competitors to replicate), we think Duolingo likely benefits from AI enabling conversational experiences as it creates upsell opportunities and improves teaching efficacy,” he wrote. Shares of Duolingo have slipped 21% this year. DUOL YTD mountain DUOL year to date â Lisa Kailai Han 5:40 a.m.: Mizuho upgrades Norwegian Cruise Line, cites inflection point for performance It’s time for investors to take a chance on Norwegian Cruise Line , according to Mizuho. The bank upgraded shares of the cruise operator to buy from neutral and lifted its price target to $24 from $21. This updated forecast implies that shares of Norwegian could rise 50% from their closing price. With the stock down 20% this year, analyst Ben Chaiken thinks sentiment is finally shifting as valuations become more attractive. “After ~2 years of significant relative underperformance (~ -160% vs RCL since Jan ’23) NCLH is streamlining its business (e.g., cost cuts), which should drive upside to near-term/medium-term estimates,” he wrote. The analyst also cited Norwegian’s cost reductions as another catalyst for the change. The company has pledged to target $300 million in expense cuts by 2026, with $100 million reached this year. Norwegian has also made efforts to provide higher yields for its investors, Chaiken noted. “In the context of a very favorable industry backdrop (i.e., limited industry supply, and healthy demand), we see upside to yields from NCLH optimizing its fleet itineraries (i.e., simplifying), with a longer-term yield tailwind from further build-out of its private island portfolio,” he wrote. â Lisa Kailai Han 5:40 a.m.: JPMorgan upgrades Huntington Bancshares This year’s strong gains in Huntington Bancshares are only the beginning, according to JPMorgan. Analyst Steven Alexopoulos upgraded the Columbus, Ohio-based bank to overweight from neutral. His price target of $18, up from $16, implies upside of 31% from Friday’s close. Alexopoulos noted he became more upbeat on the stock after meeting with its CEO and chief financial officer. “What we learned from our meetings … is that (1) the onshoring benefits to the company’s primary markets appears to not only be much more of a needle-mover than we expected, but the timing of these benefits is also coming sooner than expected and (2) with the company having followed a plan since the 2022 investor day to add new verticals as well as expand into new markets, the potential incremental organic growth from these initiatives is much more than we had anticipated,” the analyst wrote. Huntington shares have climbed 8% year to date. They are also up 26% over the past six months. The stock rose more than 1% in the premarket following the upgrade. HBAN YTD mountain HBAN year to date â Fred Imbert
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