(This is CNBC Pro’s live coverage of Friday’s analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) An electric vehicle maker and a major cloud player were in focus in Friday’s analyst chatter. Piper Sandler raised its rating on Rivian to overweight, noting the stock can rally 96% from here. Guggenheim also became more positive on Snowflake, upgrading shares to neutral from sell. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 7:19 a.m.: Piper Sandler upgrades DoorDash, still sees stock as overvalued DoorDash is still poised to reap the benefits of Covid-induced consumer food delivery habits, according to Piper Sandler. The investment firm upgraded shares of the food delivery platform to a neutral rating. Analyst Thomas Champion also lifted his price target for DoorDash to $127 from $53, which corresponds to a 4% decline for the stock. Shares of DoorDash have rallied 34% in 2024. While Champion noted that the stock is now the most expensive out of its peer group, he no longer thinks an underweight rating is warranted due to the company’s focus on profitability and consistent execution. DASH YTD mountain DASH in 2024 As one catalyst for the change, the analyst pointed to DoorDash’s position as the largest player in the U.S. food delivery market, citing his estimation that the company holds around 65% market share. “This strong position allows them to negotiate favorable terms with restaurants and expand market share in the U.S.,” he wrote. What’s more, Champion believes that there’s still “considerable room” for the company to grow. The analyst pointed to shifting consumer habits towards adopting more on-demand delivery services as evidence of this trend. “The on-demand delivery market is still expanding, with new categories like groceries and convenience store items being added. DoorDash should be well-positioned to capitalize on this trend through partnerships and platform improvements,” he wrote. — Lisa Kailai Han 6:49 a.m.: JPMorgan sees continued upside for Eli Lilly, nods to its competitive moat Pharmaceutical darling Eli Lilly has more room to run, according to JPMorgan. The bank reiterated its overweight rating on shares of the firm. Analyst Chris Schott lifted his price target to $850 from $775, implying that shares could rally another 12% from Thursday’s. Shares of Eli Lilly are already up an eye-watering 31% this year. LLY YTD mountain LLY year to date As a catalyst, the analyst pointed to Eli Lilly’s optimal position in the diabetes and obesity market, noting that Zepbound is off to a strong start as cash pay demand for the drug has been greater than expected. “LLY remains one of our favorite names as we see further upside to Street estimates as Mounjaro continues to ramp, Zepbound fully launches in 2024, and the company’s incretin pipeline continues to advance,” Schott wrote. “In addition, we are encouraged by LLY’s efforts to expand its early/mid stage pipeline to address longer-term growth.” As an example, the analyst underscored Eli Lilly’s prediction that demand for incretions should outstrip supply in the near future, translating to more stabling pricing within the obesity market. Schott estimated that sales for Eli Lilly’s incretion franchise could reach $20 billion in 2024 and more than $60 billion by 2030, up from $12.5 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, Eli Lilly’s oral GLP-1 drug, orforglipron, could offer further upside for the company once it’s past development and has been fully released. “LLY is broadly investing in a next wave of obesity assets with orforglipron representing the most meaningful near-term opportunity in our view … Ultimately, we see LLY and Novo building a still underappreciated competitive moat that will result in a sustained duopoly in this unprecedented large market,” the analyst added, nodding towards the company’s recent steps into the Alzheimer’s space. — Lisa Kailai Han 6:21 a.m.: Citi reiterates buy rating for Micron, sees AI-related tailwinds ahead Micron is the next name poised to ride the artificial intelligence wave, according to Citi. The bank stood by its buy rating and named the semiconductor manufacturer as one of its top picks. Analyst Christopher Danely also raised his price target for Micron to $150 from $95, implying a potential 64% rally for the stock. “This is a 50% premium to Micron’s historic range, but we believe MU stock should get a premium given increasing AI exposure and other AI-exposed stocks such as AVGO and AMD have seen a 100% increase in their multiples,” he wrote. Shares of Micron have added 7% this year. The firm is scheduled to report its fiscal second-quarter results next week. MU YTD mountain MU year to date “We expect the company to post upside to Consensus and increased guidance for F3Q24 given strong DRAM pricing and shipments of higher-priced, higher-margin, High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) which is shipping with Nvidia AI systems,” Danely added. — Lisa Kailai Han 6:13 a.m.: Citi upgrades Thor to buy, notes currently attractive entry point for investors A recent sell-off has opened up an attractive entry point for shares of Thor Industries , according to Citi. The bank upgraded shares of the RV manufacturer to buy rating from neutral, lifting its price target to $122 from $111. This corresponds to upside of 21%. A “tempered” industry outlook and disappointing margin performance led shares of Thor to sell off last week, with the stock now down 15% on the year. But analyst James Hardiman thinks that this pullback has just created an attractive entry point for investors. “While we have resisted previous entry points, following the most recent miss, guide down, and sell-off, we think the worst is behind us, that February declines will be much more modest than those in January, and that the industry is likely to turn positive in April/May,” he wrote. “We see the THO story as a ‘when’ rather than an ‘if’, and last week’s sell off as premature.” While Hardiman expects more retail declines in the next two to three months, he expects a positive industry inflection by April or May. This could increase confidence for dealers, original equipment manufacturers and investors, ultimately bolstering Thor’s valuations. The analyst also expects that prices and rate cuts will lead to a 17% affordability tailwind in the RV space by the end of 2024, with more gains to be further made in 2024. “Our price target of $122 implies a 22% return, but the appeal in valuation comes if affordability improvement translates into a meaningful improvement in retail demand, which is the driver behind our upside scenario of $193, or nearly 3x the move of our downside scenario of $65,” he added. — Lisa Kailai Han 5:56 a.m.: Baird stands by outperform rating on Nvidia ahead of next week’s GTC conference Ahead of Nvidia’s GTC global AI conference next week, Baird reiterated its outperforming rating on the chipmaker. Baird’s $1,050 price target implies that Nvidia stock could still rally another 19%, adding onto its eye-watering 78% gain so far this year. As a catalyst, analyst Trista Gerra noted Nvidia would most likely unveil its next-gen architecture, Blackwell, at the conference. “We expect a very significant step up in performance specs versus H100, as inferred by our channel feedback about the higher pricing versus H100,” he wrote. “Nvidia’s yearly cadence of new product introductions and performance step up will place increasing pressure on ASIC architectures trying to catch up, in our view.” Meanwhile, ongoing robust demand means that Nvidia continues to demand more capacity. Gerra also sees opportunity growth in the enterprise solutions category for Nvidia. These enterprise solutions “are unique to Nvidia, with the weight of the company’s entire ecosystem resulting in customizable turnkey solutions in turn now driving rapid adoption of Nvidia’s L40S AI architecture in the enterprise,” he said. “AI adoption at enterprise is at a very early cycle, boding well for the sustainability of the AI ramp, with no competition so far.” After soaring more than 200% last year, Nvidia shares have surged another 77% in 2024. NVDA YTD mountain NVDA year to date — Lisa Kailai Han 5:50 a.m.: Piper Sandler upgrades Rivian to overweight, predicts stock could nearly double Piper Sandler upgraded shares of electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian to an overweight rating from neutral. Analyst Alexander Potter accompanied this move by lifting his price target to $21 from $15, implying that shares could rally 96%, or nearly double. Troubles have plagued the electric vehicle space this year, with Tesla and Fisker as two notable examples. With its stock down 54% this year, Rivian hasn’t been exempt. “Make no mistake: buying RIVN is risky and a botched midyear re-tooling effort could yet surprise investors negatively,” Potter wrote. “But the newly-unveiled R2 SUV generated 68k orders in less than 24 hours, and we think its sibling, the R3, could be one of the most compelling designs on the market when it is released.” The analyst added that this excitement around the new product launch, alongside the company’s plans to delay capex and build R2 in an existing plant, should lead to investors feeling more bullish in general about the stock. If the R3 vehicle is priced right, Potter believes it could become Rivian’s top seller. Meanwhile, Potter’s new model reflects cost savings efforts at Rivian, which would also require only half as much new capital as the firm would previously have needed. The “real endgame,” Potter added, was that Rivian was the only automaker following Tesla’s vertical integration strategy by scaling up and monetizing its services. “If Rivian can achieve cash flow breakeven in the late 2020s, which is our expectation, then the company should be able to self-fund the production of an internet-connected vehicle fleet and, ultimately, unlock operating margins in the teens,” he wrote. “Now that near-term balance sheet concerns have (mostly) been addressed, we think investors can turn their attention back to this bullish thesis and stop fretting so much about cash burn.” — Lisa Kailai Han 5:50 a.m.: Guggenheim upgrades Snowflake Things should starting to turn for the better for Snowflake , according to Guggenheim. Analyst John DiFucci upgraded the cloud stock to neutral from sell. He also pulled his $120 price target, which implied downside of more than 24%. “We believe SNOW has a mountain of challenges in front of it that will continue to feed material investor worry, and this likely won’t dissipate any time soon,” DiFucci wrote Thursday. “At the same time, even if Snowflake only remained a strong cloud-based data warehouse vendor with little success in penetrating the adjacent markets it aspires to, it will remain a valuable asset, in our view; though perhaps not as valuable as it is even today.” Snowflake shares have struggled this year, losing 20%, in part due to Frank Slootman stepping down his CEO role. The stock rose slightly in the premarket. SNOW YTD mountain SNOW year to date — Fred Imbert
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