Notable analyst calls this week: Tesla, Zoom and Micron stocks among top picks

Wall Street on Friday suffered its worst weekly loss in just over a month, as market participants received a bit of a reality check from the Federal Reserve. For the week, the S&P (SP500) slipped -2.0%, while the blue-chip Dow (DJI) shed -2.3%. The Nasdaq Composite (COMP:IND) fell -1.8%

Wall Street had a slew of upgrades and downgrades from analysts. Here are some of the major calls for the week:

Wall Street concerned about Micron after Q1 results

Bank of America Securities downgraded Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) to Neutral from a Buy rating and reduced its price target on the stock to $110 from $125, following its first quarter results.

BofA analyst Vivek Arya said data center and HBM trends remain strong, but weakness in PC and phone markets are putting downward pressure on memory pricing, especially in NAND.

Morgan Stanley, which retained its Equal-weight rating, decreased PT to $98 from $114 and said NAND will drive most of the revenue decline in February. Wells Fargo also lowered PT to $140 from $175.

Mizuho anticipates better position for Tesla, upgrades rating

Mizuho Securities upgraded Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) to Outperform and boosted near-term estimates on the Austin-based electric vehicle company.

Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh pointed to the loosening of the autonomous driving regulatory framework as providing more FSD/Robotaxi valuation upside for Tesla.

The brokerage, whose sum-of-the-parts price target on Tesla is $515, said new Trump administration policies are anticipated to position TSLA better with its lower electric vehicle cost structure relative to peers.

Oracle in focus after Monness downgrades to Sell

Monness downgraded Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) to Sell from Neutral with a $130 price target, saying the company's current price-to-earnings, or P/E, multiple is about double its long-term, historical average.

Monness finds Oracle's plan to double capital expenditure in fiscal 2025 to be troubling and unsustainable. The analysts added that Monness' current fiscal 2025 EPS estimate for Oracle now stands exactly where it was one year ago, while its Cloud Services revenue projection is lower.

Benchmark downgrades Western Digital, decreases annual sales and EPS forecast

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) downgraded to Hold from Buy by Benchmark and decreased its fiscal year 2025 forecast on the company for non-GAAP earnings per share to $7.57 from $8.16. They also reduced the annual sales revenue forecast to $16.7B from $17.4B.

"We see a growing number of concerns for Western Digital including softening NAND pricing driven by customer inventory adjustments in consumer markets, continued expected slowness in NAND chip demand in the industrial and automotive markets, weak F2Q25 guidance by Micron, and a declining share in the NAND market," said Benchmark analyst Mark Miller.

Jefferies sees better future for Zoom Communications, upgrades to Buy

Jefferies upgraded Zoom Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) to Buy from Hold, citing multiple reasons for increased optimism, including artificial intelligence.

The brokerage also hiked PT to $100 from $85 and said that the communications software company’s future is getting better.

"We think ZM could evolve from being perceived as a communication / collaboration platform to become an enterprise system of action, where employees are completing more of their day-to-day work in ZM," analyst Samad Samana wrote.

Jefferies downgraded Ford (NYSE:F) to Underperform from Hold, citing concerns ranging from inventory overhang to looming strategic decision on its European presence and widening gap between warranty provisions and related cash flows. The brokerage also lowered PT by 25% to $9 and said Ford faces a difficult start to 2025.

Bernstein said it counts Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) among its top stocks in the semiconductor space for next year. Bank of America also included them in their list for next year's top semiconductor stocks, along with Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL), Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX), On Semiconductor (NASDAQ:ON) and Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ:CDNS).

Similarly, Morgan Stanley said Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) remains its Top Pick heading into 2025 and the firm maintained its Overweight rating and $273 price target on the shares.

RTX (NYSE:RTX) was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform by RBC Capital Markets, with analysts saying that it should benefit from a rotation into original equipment, with initial provisioning a potential tailwind for aftermarket sales. Meanwhile, RBC downgraded General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) to Sector Perform from Outperform, saying that the company faces challenges in expanding its deliveries of Gulfstream jets and from possible cuts to federal spending with the incoming Trump administration.