Wall Street's most closely watched research rating reports that can influence market trends have been compiled here. The following are the rating changes that investors need to focus on today, compiled by The Fly.
Five Major Rating Upgrades
Erste Group: Upgraded Alibaba (BABA) rating from "Hold" to "Buy." The firm stated that Alibaba has "good development momentum" in artificial intelligence applications.
Fox Advisors: Upgraded Instacart (CART) rating from "Market Perform" to "Outperform." The firm told investors that the stock has fallen 24% since August 11 (down 16% in the past month), and the "competitive concerns that caused the stock decline have been overly magnified," with the stock now in "oversold" territory.
Gordon Haskett: Upgraded Zillow (Z) rating from "Hold" to "Buy" and set a target price of $90. The upgrade was based on the negative sentiment that has weighed on the stock over the past two weeks, creating a "favorable risk/reward ratio."
Wells Fargo: Upgraded Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) rating from "Market Perform" to "Overweight," raising the target price from $170 to $212. The firm stated that previous concerns about Johnson & Johnson—including drug tariffs, pricing risks, and the patent expiration of Stelara (a biologic drug)—have now been largely resolved.
Rothschild & Co Redburn: Upgraded Coinbase (COIN) rating from "Neutral" to "Buy," raising the target price from $325 to $417. Although the firm still expects Coinbase's take rate (the commission percentage the platform takes from transactions) to gradually decline in the future, it believes that growth in retail trading volume will help mitigate this impact.
Five Major Rating Downgrades
Jefferies: Downgraded Apple (AAPL) rating from "Hold" to "Underperform," slightly lowering the target price from $205.82 to $205.16. The firm explained to investors that strong demand for the iPhone 17 (possibly benefiting from no price increase for Pro and Pro Max models and "implicit price reduction" for the base iPhone 17 model) is already fully reflected in the current stock price, leading to "excessive expectations" in the market for the "upgrade cycle" and the prospects for the foldable iPhone 18 model.
Piper Sandler: Downgraded Instacart (CART) rating from "Overweight" to "Neutral," lowering the target price from $62 to $41. The downgrade was due to the firm's belief that Instacart faces increasing competitive pressure from competitors including Amazon (AMZN), Walmart (WMT), Uber (UBER), and DoorDash (DASH).
Wolfe Research: Downgraded PayPal (PYPL) rating from "Outperform" to "Peer Perform," giving a fair value range of $70-80. The firm believes PayPal's stock price will be range-bound in the short term, and investors need to see further evidence of the company's brand business execution capabilities before developing more positive expectations.
KeyBanc: Downgraded Corteva (CTVA) rating from "Overweight" to "Sector Weight" (equivalent to industry average), with no target price set. The downgrade comes as Corteva announced plans to spin off into two publicly traded companies.
Goldman Sachs: Downgraded Bumble (BMBL, a dating social platform company) rating from "Buy" to "Neutral," lowering the target price from $8 to $7. The firm told investors that at current price levels, Bumble's risk and reward profile has become more balanced.
Five New Coverage/Resumed Coverage Ratings
TD Securities: Resumed coverage of Shopify (SHOP) with a "Hold" rating, raising the target price from $130 to $156. TD Securities believes that if macroeconomic uncertainty leads to slowing growth for Shopify, the stock could experience a "substantial pullback."
Rothschild & Co Redburn: Initiated coverage of Circle Internet (CRCL) with a "Neutral" rating and a target price of $136. The firm stated that Circle needs to continue investing in distribution channels, and as stablecoin applications in real-world scenarios increase, market competition will intensify; combined with the current "high valuation," they assigned a neutral rating.
Bank of America: Initiated coverage of Astera Labs (ALAB) with a "Neutral" rating and a target price of $230. The firm noted that Astera Labs' growth may face slowing risks due to intensifying competition from NVIDIA's (NVDA) "NVLink" technology and Broadcom's (AVGO) "Scale-Up Ethernet" switches.
Jefferies: Initiated coverage of Gen Digital (GEN) with a "Hold" rating and a target price of $31. The firm believes Gen Digital faces short-term business execution risks, and the current stock price already reflects its reasonable value.
TD Securities: Resumed coverage of Descartes Systems (DSGX) with a "Buy" rating, lowering the target price from $135 to $121. The firm believes that when the macroeconomic environment improves and customers begin investing to address ongoing trade volatility, Descartes Systems will be well-positioned.
