Analysts upgrade Salesforce and Walmart, downgrade Adobe and hardware makers

what happened

According to Seeking Alpha, Wall Street analysts issued a new batch of upgrades and downgrades last week. On October 12, Bank of America raised Salesforce to Buy from Underperform and lifted its price target to $285 from $160. The bank argued that large enterprises are unlikely to replace software platforms holding their business logic and data as they adopt AI.

On October 14, Barclays moved Dell, HPE and NetApp to Equal Weight from Overweight, lowering Dell's target to $574 from $603 and HPE's to $77 from $83. On October 12, Barclays also downgraded HubSpot and monday.com, saying AI benefits could take longer to arrive. On October 15, Deutsche Bank upgraded Walmart to Buy from Hold with a $136 target, up from $113. Wells Fargo downgraded Adobe to Underweight from Overweight on October 12 and cut its target to $225 from $270.

Vertical Research upgraded Lockheed Martin to Buy from Hold on October 14, setting a $600 target and expecting its missile business to grow about 11% a year through the end of the decade.

why it matters

These rating changes reflect shifting views on how AI will affect software and hardware makers. Individually, they do not alter companies' fundamentals, but they show how major brokers are weighing risks and prospects across technology and defense stocks.

tags

instruments