Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Chevron, Alphabet, Tesla & more

“We are reinstating a rating on Chevron at Buy and add the stock to the Americas Conviction List following the termination of the Chevron-Anadarko signed merger agreement. Our $144 12-month P/E, EV/DACF and dividend yield based target implies 24% total return. We acknowledge that our positive view on Chevron could be met with increased investor debate and look to address the following areas of potential investor queries in this report. “

“We increase our estimates and confidence in the medium-term outlook for Alphabet shares coming out of the Google Marketing Live keynote in San Francisco, where we see an accelerating pace of new ad product making us meaningfully more confident in the 2020 outlook. We think Google has among the best ad prod-uct pipelines we have seen since the addition of the third paid link in mobile in 2015. The company announced a significantly larger pipeline of new advertising prod-uct at this year’s event versus last year ( Figure 3 ). We estimate that monetization of the Discover feed, alone, could add ~$7.5B annually to our estimates in a bull case for a surface essentially unmonetized historically ( Figure 1 ). Given the com-pelling ad product pipeline, we increase our estimates (primarily in 2020) and target multiples, resulting in a $1,400 target (from $1,300 previously). “

“Recent checks suggest AMAT has been able to secure major memory wins, with associated volume shipment starting in early 2020. As illustrated in Figure 3-4, since 2016, AMAT has lost market share in Deposition (largest WFE segment) and Etch (2nd largest WFE segment), with AMAT’s overall WFE market share down ~300 bps 2016-2018. We believe AMAT has recently won memory designs, with systems shippable in early 2020, that is expected to help AMAT regain some of the lost share. Our updated FY/CY20 is based on AMAT regaining ~200 bps of share, translating to $750-$1,000 million of incremental revenues. .. .Although the continued Tariff dispute is viewed as a “headline” overhang, we remind investors the majority of semiconductor chips (particularly memory) are manufactured outside of China. In our view, the downside risk stems from a more prolonged depressed memory margin profile (well into 2020) that could cause memory customers to have a slower recovery in capex spending.”

“Key Message: The market has struggled to value a wave of businesses digitizing things like home buying, food delivery, transportation and private/work space. The models are complex, asset intense and as yet unprofitable. ZG has been part of that debate as it ramps Offers, which we expect to surpass its ad business by 4Q. We upgrade ZG to BUY (and are introducing a $45 PT) with recent results proving that demand for Offers is real, unit profits are possible and with a plan to leverage the platform via adjacent products. It may take years to fully realize the vision, but we believe ZG is off to a strong start. “

“Our Rev estimates decline -3%, -1%, and -6% in ’19, ’20, ’21 respectively, due to concerns around production, demand and macroeconomic conditions. With an enterprise value still of $53bn, Tesla still trades at a huge valuation premium to any automotive peers. This compares to other premium OEMs such as VW’s $36bn, BMW’s $15bn and DAI’s $27bn. The only thing that can justify such valuations is supernatural growth and best in class execution. Both are in question right now. Tesla is a car company. It needs and burns cash like a car company. The longer questions around execution and growth persist, the more difficult the valuation is to defend. Our ’20 / ’21 EPS declines 6% / 41% respectively to reflect forward looking changes (’20 Model 3 peak) and the 1Q shortfall. “

“We consider Q1/19 results to be in line with expectations. Looking ahead, we have reset our 2019 and 2020 estimates based on our revised outlook for a more gradual ramp of industry production and value-added products. However, given the stock’s notable downtrend year to date to below our prior price target, we are upgrading Tilray shares to Market Perform (Speculative) from Underperform (Speculative). “

“The stock currently trades at 0.5x FY19F P/S, implying 31% upside. We turn more positive about JD’s margin outlook, backed by: 1) robust advertising revenue growth, which we estimate to have grown 50%+ y-y in 1Q19. While ad revenue currently accounts for merely 3-4% of JD‘s total revenue, we estimate its gross profit share likely exceeded 20% in 1Q19 thanks to its high-margin nature. With improving ad-targeting technologies, we believe JD’s ad business should still have plenty of room to grow. 2) Improving margins for JD Logistics (JL). JL saw deep losses in 1-3Q18 due to a rapid increase in capacity. JL has introduced proactive measures since 4Q18 to improve profitability, including a) offering parcel delivery service to individual users in certain regions since October 2018; and b) reforming the pay structure for its 95k delivery staff by converting fixed monthly salary into performance-based compensation, which we believe may help improve its overall logistics efficiency. “