Our Latest Thoughts as Several Holdings Get New Price Targets

*Our thoughts on Vulcan Materials and United Rentals as we parse the July Construction Spending Report

*Bank of America gets bullish on Trade Desk shares

*Compass Point is neutral on Mastercard, but its price target sees more upside

*UBS catches up with its Apple price target

While we wait for Wednesday's Applied Materials AMAT conference presentation, let’s catch up on a few other recent happenings and how they relate to the Portfolio.

Thoughts on Vulcan Materials, United Rentals Following July Construction Spending Report

Published on Tuesday, the July report for construction spending showed a 0.3% decline compared to June with modest dips in both residential and nonresidential construction.

While this may have bothered some investors, it matches the comments shared by Vulcan Materials VMC when it reported quarterly results a few weeks ago. Wet weather was the issue, and we’re no strangers to wet or snowy weather slowing down construction-related projects. However, on a year-over-year basis, total non-residential construction spending climbed 5.9% compared to July 2023, while residential construction rose 7.7% over the same period. Public nonresidential construction, a proxy for infrastructure spending, grew even faster at 8.2% with double-digit gains in a number of key categories.

In looking at those figures, as we suspected would soon be the case, we are lapping very strong double-digit gains registered last year. With multi-year infrastructure spending programs, it’s going to happen, but we are continuing to see continued gains as the full force of those spending programs is being felt. This, along with further pricing for cement and aggregates, bodes well for Vulcan Materials and the recent sell-off offers members who are underweight a nice place to pick up the shares.

The pullback in three-rated United Rentals URI has the shares flirting with their 50-day moving average at $698. A successful test of that level could lead us to revisit their rating with an upward baize. If a successful test is not had, we may stay on the sidelines, keeping URI’s 100-day moving average ($678.47) in our crosshairs.

Bank of America Gets Bullish on Trade Desk Shares

Today, BofA initiated coverage of Trade Desk TTD shares with a buy rating and $135 price target. While that price target is a bit more aggressive than our $120 target, BofA’s bullish stance largely echoes our own. The firm sees Trade Desk benefitting from the growing connected TV (CTV), and Retail Media ad markets, something we’ve been quite vocal about with you.

Adding support for our thesis and helping explain why advertisers continue to embrace CTV advertising, cable TV continues to lose viewership as folks switch over to streaming and other methods to watch TV. According to a new report from Nielsen, cable TV now accounts for just 26.7% of all TV viewership, and streaming accounts for 41.4%. This time last year, those figures were 29.6% for cable and 38.7% for streaming, which makes it pretty evident where the share shift landed.

Compass Point is Neutral on Mastercard, but its Price Target Sees More Upside

With our $490 price target less than 2% away, we are keeping a close watch on Mastercard MA shares. Our intention is to revisit that price target following this week’s rash of August job creation and wage data, but today research firm Compass Point slapped a fresh $525 target on the shares. Despite the higher target, Compass Point’s rating on the shares is neutral. With less than 10% upside to that target, that sounds right to us.

UBS Catches Up With its Apple Price Target

Initiating a Neutral rating is one thing, but lifting your price target by 24% and still keeping a Neutral target says you might have missed something. That’s what UBS did today when it lifted its Apple AAPL target to $236 from $190.

Ahead of Apple’s event next week and August revenue reports from TSM and Hon-Hai HNHAF, $250 is our AAPL target.

More Pro Portfolio

At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AMAT, VMC, URI, TTD, MA and AAPL.