Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Lyft, General Electric, Comcast & more

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Lyft CEO Logan Green (R) and President John Zimmer (2nd R) speak before the Nasdaq opening bell celebrating the company’s initial public offering (IPO) on March 29, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday:

Deutsche Bank initiated Lyft as ‘buy’

Deutsche Bank said Lyft stock may be bottoming after hitting a record low and pointing to what it calls “robust” second quarter results.

“The company reported robust 2Q results, and yet the stock has been weak around: (1) an early release from the IPO lockup, (2) heightened regulatory uncertainty stem-ming from the California AB 5 legislation and concern this could spread nationally,(3) a decreased appetite for unprofitable companies trading on revenue multiples, and (4) concerns around whether or not ridesharing is a good business.”

Read more about this call here.

Credit Suisse upgraded Papa John’s to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’

Credit Suisse said it is bullish on the company after it named a new CEO.

“We have increased confidence in the trajectory of the turnaround following PZZA‘s appointment of former Arby’s President, Rob Lynch, as CEO last week. We expect Lynch will leverage his experience with the Arby’s turnaround to develop a strategy for PZZA, including a focus on improving franchisee relationships and profitability, enhancing the marketing strategy, increasing the pipeline of new menu innovation and leveraging data analytics to drive decisions.”

BMO upgraded Bloomin’ Brands to ‘market perform’ from ‘underperform’

BMO said it sees various strategic opportunities to unlock “potential upside” for shares of the restaurant hospitality company.

“We have argued in the past that strategic changes could unlock value for BLMN and, while the probability is unknown, it is higher following the disclosure last Friday of Jana’s 9% stake. We updated and expanded our prior analysis of various strategic opportunities to assess the potential upside to BLMN shares. “

Oppenheimer upgraded Comcast to ‘outperform’ from ‘perform’

Oppenheimer said it upgraded the stock due to the company’s strength in broadband and an underestimation by Wall Street of ad revenues.

“We think cable can become a 50%-plus EBITDA margin business on lower CAPX, while still growing broadband share and pricing with superior service. CMCSA has 1 gig availability in nearly 100% of its network, and we expect CMCSA to continue to increase ARPUs 4% per year. Negatively, we expect carriers to roll out 5G aggressively, which adds competition but not until 2021 or later. We are moving to Outperform with a $54 PT.”

Susquehanna initiated Occidental Petroleum as ‘positive’

Susquehanna said that while Occidental’s acquisition of Anadarko may be risky, it will “strengthen” the company’s capital efficiency.

“While the APC acquisition does increase OXY‘s near-term risk profile somewhat, we think the acquisition ultimately strengthens the company’s capital efficiency and flexibility along with improving the longer-term durability of its dividend.”

SunTrust upgraded Match to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’

SunTrust said it likes Match’s “sustained positive momentum” across the company’s myriad of brands.

“Positive intra-quarter app traffic and revenue trends for MTCH‘s myriad of brands across several geos show sustained positive momentum quarter to date, causing us to raise our ests and upgrade the stock to Buy from Hold. We expect Tinder to once again print one of its best quarterly net adds ever, with further headroom to grow.”

Morgan Stanley initiated General Electric as ‘equal weight’

Morgan Stanley said in its initiation note that its primary concerns about shares of General Electric reside outside the company’s core business.

“Risk/reward appears reasonable, but comes with an unfavorable catalyst timing and unresolved risks outside the core business, particularly in Long-Term Care. The Power story could be positive in the near term, while Aviation’s golden age is just outside our time horizon.”

Read more about this call here.

J.P. Morgan added United Technologies to the ‘focus’ list

J.P. Morgan said United Technology‘s separation of Carrier and Otis Elevator will increase the share price for the multinational aerospace company.

“Coming free cash flow inflection at the Aero businesses unmasked by S-4 filing on RTX merger, along with upcoming separation of Otis and Carrier should unlock sum-of-the-parts value, with Form 10 filings for standalone franchises in 4Q19 and ultimately 1Q20 spinoffs potential near-term catalysts.”

Cowen downgraded Royal Dutch Shell to ‘market perform’ from ‘outperform’

Cowen downgraded the company on a lower gas outlook.

RDS has peer leading exposure to international gas prices; lower forecast prices through YE20 could limit FCF growth. Cash generation through ’20 post-divestments could fall $8B short of shareholder returns, with dividend increase unlikely before ’21.”

Goldman Sachs upgraded VMware to ‘neutral’ from ‘sell’

Goldman upgraded cloud computing company, VMware, mainly on valuation.

“Our upgrade is based on the pull back in the share price, resulting in slight upside to our price target of 7% vs. the average in our coverage of 14%, and a resetting of investor expectations around the company’s growth trajectory. This, coupled with the company’s consolidation of Kubernetes management-related products to benefit from the containerization of workloads as customers migrate to the cloud, as well as traction around their hybrid cloud and multi-cloud management tools, are factors in our upgrade.”

Stephens upgraded Activision Blizzard to ‘overweight’ from ‘equal weight’

Stephens said it is bullish on the company’s upcoming game slate.

“We believe 2019 numbers are now de-risked due to the successful launch of WoW Classic and the announcement of a Nintendo Switch port for Overwatch. We anticipate further positive announcements at BlizzCon (in November) on the company’s upcoming game slate. Further, we are encouraged by Activision‘s commitment to reinvigorating core franchises through an increasing pace of content updates, which is already showing signs of early success.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.

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