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The front desk of the Amazon office is pictured in New York, May 1, 2019.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Wednesday:
Goldman Sachs downgraded General Mills to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’
Goldman downgraded the stock on concerns about slowing sales growth.
“Following GIS‘s 2Q19 results we argued that the stock was poised to outperform as its core business sequentially improved and its acquired Blue Buffalo business accelerated via distribution expansion (see Better days likely lie ahead, but can they last; published December 19, 2018). At the same time, however, we argued that the strength would likely be short-lived and that the first chapter of enthusiasm around acceleration had the potential to be followed a second chapter of concern around deceleration. With the first chapter now having largely played out, in our opinion, we position for the second chapter of mounting deceleration concerns among investors and downgrade GIS to Sell from Neutral. “
Goldman Sachs upgraded Allstate to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’
Goldman said it thinks personal auto insurance margins “will hold better” than estimates predict.
“We are upgrading ALL shares to Buy from Neutral based on our expectation that the company’s personal auto margins will hold better than consensus estimates predict and that homeowners’ margins will improve starting in 2H19. “
Pivotal initiated Amazon, Facebook, & Twitter as ‘buy’
Pivotal said the advertising environment looks good in the second quarter.
“We are initiating coverage of the Internet Advertising sector with BUY ratings on Amazon, The Trade Desk, Facebook, and Twitter, and HOLD ratings on Google, Snap, and Pinterest. It pays to be selective in today’s environment. Our proprietary surveys are supportive of the ad environment through early 2Q, particularly at TTD and AMZN and we think can be a critical part of investor’s mosaics. TTD in incredibly well-positioned as they hit an inflection point in connected TV advertising, and AMZN’s move to one-day retail is the beginning of another disruptive journey for retail. “
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Needham raised its price target on Roku to $120 from $85
Needham said the streaming media player company has “unique advantages.”
“We hosted a Streaming Panel last week during the Needham conference with Pluto TV, FuboTV and Tubi TV. We raise our Roku target price because the panel underscored unique advantages that Roku has because it’s an OTT aggregation platform rather than a single streaming service, including: a) Unduplicated and unduplicatable premium digital-TV advertising scale in the US; b) revenue optionality upside from new SVOD entrants; c) 27mm active users (of which about 50% are connected TVs with 5-10 year average life-spans) in the US, which makes Roku big enough to be a gatekeeper for 100% of new streaming services (suggesting pricing power); and d) Roku is still small enough (at a $12B market cap) to be acquired. We raise our 2020 estimates and our price target to $120 (from $85) and Roku remains our top pick for 2019. “
D.A. Davidson initiated Slack Technologies as ‘neutral’
Slack was initiated neutral mainly on valuation. Slack is a cloud based set of collaboration tools designed for people to work together. It is set to go public in a direct listing later this year.
“While we like Slack’s near-ubiquitous nature, secular tailwinds, rapid growth, and large market opportunity, and our due diligence is very positive, valuation is our sticking point and we would wait for a pullback to get more constructive.”
