Here are Wednesday’s biggest analyst calls of the day: Netflix, Target, Affirm, Uber, Amazon & more

Here are Wednesday’s biggest calls on Wall Street: Goldman Sachs initiates Weatherford as buy Goldman said the oilfield service company has a robust balance sheet. “We believe that Weatherford is in better shape today than it has been in the past – both because of a better business mix and stronger balance sheet.” Wedbush initiates Affirm as underperform Wedbush said it has concerns about rising competition and slowing e-commerce sales. “However, we’re concerned about Affirm’ s path to GAAP profitability, increasing competition in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space, industry forecasts calling for slowing e-commerce sales and its ability to cover its cost of capital as funding costs increase.” Read more about this call here. Wells Fargo reiterates Microsoft as overweight Wells said hat the tech giant is the ” best way to play the broad secular trend towards software.” ” MSFT –still the best way to play the broad secular trend towards software in our view, platform positioning esp. advantageous in the current environment and trading at 24x GAAP P/E while still growing EPS > 20%;” Needham reiterates Netflix as hold Netflix said that the streaming giant will not be a “winner” even after adding an ad-based pricing tier. “Even after adding an ad-driven tier, NFLX will NOT be a Streaming Wars winner (our view) unless it adds sports and news content (to lower customer acq costs), buys a deep film and TV library (to hold onto subs longer), and enhances its bundling opportunities.” Barclays reiterates Uber as overweight Barclays raised its price target on the ride sharing company to $53 per share from $48, noting it thinks the stock is a recession beneficiary. “In contrast to the prevailing negative sentiment we hear from the investment community, a contrarian take that is not being considered but we think should be is that UBER may be a major beneficiary of a recession (driver supply easing) and the implosion in private market funding markets as lots of tier-two competitors fall by the wayside.” Atlantic Equities downgrades Moody’s to neutral from overweight Atlantic Equities said in its downgrade of the ratings agency that it “revenue impacts could be more severe than anticipated.” “The severity of the weakness in global issuance was further clarified by both S & P Global and Moody’s at competitor conferences last week. S & P Global expects global market issuance to decline in the high-teens and its own rated issuance to decline by 30-35% in FY22, should trends not improve.” JMP initiates Blue Owl as market outperform JMP said in its initiation of the capital markets company that it has an “attractive” risk-reward outlook. “Given the robust intermediate-term growth outlook for the firm as well as the mix of earnings/AUM, we think the risk/reward is particularly attractive for OWL .” Morgan Stanley downgrades Altria to underweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its downgrade of the tobacco company that it sees too many macro risks and competitive pressure for Altria. “Near term, we anticipate greater pressures from rising gas prices and weaker consumer sentiment, which should weigh on cigarette volumes and enhance trade down risk.” JPMorgan downgrades Dutch Bros. to neutral from overweight JPMorgan said it sees a “difficult” near-term for Dutch Bros . “Stock Bounces Back to Near Initiation Price, Past TAM, Despite Lower EBITDA. D/G to N on Valuation + Difficult Near-Term.” Read more about this call here. Bank of America downgrades Target to neutral from buy Bank of America downgraded the big box retailer after its profit warning on Tuesday and said it sees “valuation pressure.” “We downgrade TGT to Neutral (was Buy) and lower our PO to $165, based on 15x our F24E EPS of $10.80 (was $13.45) as we believe valuation pressure from discretionary category risks will likely offset strong long-term positioning.” Read more about this call here. Barclays downgrades Hanesbrands and Kontoor Brands to equal weight from overweight Barclays downgraded Hanesbrands and Kontoor due to excess inventory risk. “We are downgrading HBI and KTB to Equal Weight given increasing risk of excess wholesale inventory as key customers increase promotional activity to clear the channel and are managing orders conservatively.” BMO reiterates Amazon as a top pick BMO said the e-commerce giant would continue “leading the secular shift to consumer e-commerce and enterprise cloud services.” “Labor optimization is underway, and we expect FC overcapacity to be absorbed by holiday season. Once clear of these headwinds, we expect AMZN’s position leading the secular shift to consumer e-commerce and enterprise cloud services should return to the fore.” Credit Suisse reiterates Alphabet as outperform Credit Suisse said in a note that if there’s a recession that shares of Alphabet offer “greater downside risk protection.” “in the event of a milder recession resulting in flat YOY revenue growth for 2023, we believe FB shares offer lower downside risk, 2) in the event of a steeper recession resulting in a ~5% YOY revenue decline for 2023, we believe GOOGL shares will offer greater downside risk protection.” Morgan Stanley reiterates AT & T as overweight Morgan Stanley said that it sees “further material upside” for shares of the media and telecommunications company. “Greater visibility into the financial performance of the company post the spin-off of WarnerMedia, along with a potential for incremental return of capital and defensive sectors re-rating higher, could provide more upside for the AT & T stock.”