Friday's analyst calls: What the Street says about Microsoft earnings, chemical stock gets upgraded

(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.) Microsoft and a major chemical stock were among Friday's biggest analyst calls. Many analysts reacted to the tech giant's latest quarterly results, which sent shares soaring in the premarket. Elsewhere, JPMorgan upgraded Dow Inc to overweight from neutral. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 8:05 a.m.: Bank of America downgrades Teledyne Technologies Teledyne Technologies' below-expectations quarterly results has Bank of America stepping to the sidelines on the stock. “Teledyne (TDY) broke expectations of announcing a 'beat-and-raise' and instead surprised investors with a 'miss-and-cut,'” analyst Ronald Epstein wrote in a Friday note. Weakness in the digital imaging segment, which accounts for nearly half of Teledyne's revenue, led management to reduce its earnings guidance for the year. Epstein lowered his rating on the stock to neutral from buy. He also reduced his price target by $90 to $400 per share. The analyst believes Teledyne will be a laggard in the near-term due to low demand on digital imaging, as well as its “delayed position in the value chain.” Shares are down 15.5% in 2024. — Hakyung Kim 7:33 a.m.: Benchmark upgrades Western Digital to buy Western Digital's solid fiscal third quarter report shows that the chipmaker's fundamentals are improving, according to Benchmark. Analyst Mark Miller upgraded the stock to buy, saying in a note to clients that stronger pricing for semiconductors should help power another rally for the stock. “Driven by higher [average selling prices], flash sales grew by 2.4% sequentially to $1.71 billion and were up by 30.5% y/y. NAND ASPs sequentially increased by 18% on both a like-for-like basis and blended basis,” the note said. Shares of Western Digital were up about 1% in premarket trading, hovering just above $70 per share. Benchmark has a price target of $85 per share on the stock. – Jesse Pound 7:23 a.m.: Barclays upgrades Enphase Energy, says stock is at 'reasonable entry point' Enphase Energy is approaching an inflection point, according to analyst Christine Cho. Cho upgraded shares of the solar and energy storage company to overweight and raised her price target by $19 to $134, which suggests 24.3% potential upside for the stock. This year, shares have dropped 18.4%. “We think current levels provide a reasonable entry point as destocking is completed by the end of 2Q and demand is set to increase from trough levels as we move through the year,” Cho wrote in a Friday note. According to the analyst, solar demand is set to increase off of recent lows, which should benefit Enphase's stock price. The company is holding market share as it increasingly penetrates the Tier 1/2 and TPO markets, she said, adding that she expects Enphase's product offering to hold up well in California against Tesla. — Pia Singh 6:44 a.m.: Morgan Stanley downgrades Mobileye Global, says shares can drop nearly 28% Morgan Stanley thinks Mobileye Global could bear the consequences of an electric vehicle slowdown. Analyst Adam Jonas downgraded shares of the Israel-based company, which makes advanced driver-assisted systems and self-driving systems, to underweight from equal weight. He also lowered his price target by $1 to $25, which implies shares can fall roughly 19% from Thursday's close. This year, shares are down about 28.7%. MBLY YTD mountain “MBLY's leadership in computer vision creates option value for new content growth. However, a surprise slowdown in EV adoption limits the TAM through 2030 amidst aggressive competition,” Jonas wrote in a Thursday note. At its current valuation, Jonas added that the stock “appears fully valued” given the firm's views on its downside to consensus estimates. Although the analyst said he sees significant value in the company's leading position in computer vision and core ADAS offerings, headwinds around new content growth for advanced ADAS with the negative risk-reward remain top-of-mind concerns. — Pia Singh 6:37 a.m.: Stifel downgrades Caterpillar after earnings disappointment, says multiple appears 'capped' Despite the Street sending shares significantly lower on Thursday, Stifel is still bullish on construction equipment maker Caterpillar . The company reported weaker-than-expected sales for the first quarter, despite beating profit estimates, and warned of slower second-quarter sales, leading analyst Stanley Elliot to believe the stock has a “capped” multiple. He lowered his rating on the stock to hold from buy, but upped his price target by $57 to $350, which suggests shares can gain only 3.6% from Thursday's close. This year, the stock is up more than 14%, even after a more-than 7.5% decline this quarter. “With the business looking to be flattening over the near term, we expect cycle concerns will be amplified and cap multiple expansion opportunities,” Elliott wrote in a Thursday note. “We continue to be impressed with the structural improvements CAT has made, including the margin and free cash flow profile, and believe CAT is well positioned to benefit … we still see a reasonable risk/reward profile.” — Pia Singh 6:20 a.m.: Alphabet's earnings impressed Wall Street—and analysts think the stock has significant room to go Investors cheered Alphabet's first-quarter results, sending the stock more than 14% higher during Thursday's extended trading session. The Google parent company, which is up more than 11% this year, beat on earnings and revenue and also announced its first dividend and a $70 billion buyback. Here's how analysts reacted to the company's earnings: Oppenheimer: Analyst Jason Helfstein upped his price target by $20 to $205 and kept his outperform rating, citing Google's accelerating ad business as a driver of operating leverage, despite the company's significant investments in AI. Barclays: “Google is in the sweet spot of accelerating growth, expanding margins while shipping product faster, and returning capital – basically proving the naysayers wrong,” analyst Ross Sandler said, adding that market deceleration and competition are some of the threats that could threaten the stock, but not in the near term. Sandler increased his price target by $27 to $200, which implies 26.6% potential upside. Jefferies: Analyst Brent Thill maintained his buy rating and upped his price target by $20 to $200, saying shares are trading at an attractive valuation. Google's acceleration in core ad and cloud revenues were a bright spot for Thill, but the analyst remains wary of Google's capex, which is expected to jump more than 50% this year fueled by AI investments. Bank of America: Analyst Justin Post remains constructive on Google's infrastructure, data and distribution advantages, particularly after Google Search, Youtube and Cloud benefitted from AI investments in the previous quarter, he said. Post kept his $200 price target on the buy-rated stock. Alphabet is well-positioned for the long term, he said. — Pia Singh 5:58 a.m.: Analysts lift price targets after Microsoft earnings, enthused by Azure growth and AI spending Microsoft shares are up roughly 4% in premarket trading after the tech giant posted fiscal third-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street's earnings and revenue estimates, but reflected weaker-than-expected guidance. Revenue from Microsoft's Azure and other cloud services during the period also outdid the StreetAccount consensus, lending to Wall Street's generally favorable post-earnings reaction. Here's what analysts had to say about the print: Barclays: Analyst Raimo Lenschow sees shares moving higher after this quarterly print, keeping his overweight rating and $475 price target unchanged. His bullish thesis was underscored by Microsoft's Azure growth continuing to reaccelerate, benefitting from AI workloads, and its ongoing capex investments to meet strong AI-related demand. Wells Fargo: Analyst Michael Turrin kept his overweight rating and increased his price target on the stock by $20 to $500, which suggests about 25% potential upside. “MSFT delivered an impressive set of FQ3 results, w/ Azure, bookings, and margin upside … strong AI demand signals enabled mgmt to provide an early FY25 outlook for “double-digit” rev/OI growth,” he said. Turrin also pointed out Microsoft's comment that it is experiencing more near-term AI demand than its available capacity, which led him to believe the company's Azure growth and future guidance may have been higher if it weren't for lack of supply. JPMorgan: Analyst Mark Murphy added $30 to his price target, which is now at $470. Murphy pointed to the ramp up in cloud migration activity, which he said showed improvement in non-AI-related net-new cloud workloads. The company's commentary on FY25 capital expenditures and margin commentary “may keep a lid on the stock reaction for now,” however, he said. Morgan Stanley: Analyst Keith Weiss similarly maintained his overweight rating with a more bullish $520 price target. Weiss was enthused by acceleration in Microsoft's commercial bookings and Azure, which he said gives “the clearest evidence yet” of the tech company's AI dominance driving revenues and increasing share of the broader IT budget. “With the AI innovation cycle just starting, we see plenty of runway for growth,” he said. Microsoft shares are up 6.1% year-to-date, but have lost more than 5% this quarter amid the broader tech sell-off. — Pia Singh 5:58 a.m.: JPMorgan upgrades Dow Inc Rising oil prices and a solid dividend make Dow Inc a potential winner going forward, according to JPMorgan. Analyst Jeffrey Zekauskas upgraded the chemical to overweight from neutral. He also hiked his price target to $61 from $55, which implies upside of 8% going forward. Dow Inc shares have lagged this year, rising just 2.9% in that time. DOW YTD mountain However, Zekauskas said the company is “is capable of outperforming because it is a beneficiary of higher oil prices, it has a durable 5% dividend yield, its value is sensitive to acceleration in global economic activity, and its downside risk is cushioned by the existence of global political tensions. “Dow benefits from a higher oil price because its raw materials slate is largely low-cost natural gas liquids. Dow's share price is probably to a degree supported when global political tensions rise because of its oil price sensitivity,” he added. — Fred Imbert