Wall Street Gets More Bullish on 4 Portfolio Stocks

* Loop upgrades Apple shares in a catch-up call.

* TD Cowen raises its Nvidia price target.

* Goldman Sachs brings more support for Morgan Stanley’s earnings.

* Oppenheimer boosts its Trade Desk price target.

Stocks are moving higher as we begin what is going to be a multi-faceted week for the market. Some of that movement is due to the latest upgrade for Apple AAPL, which accounts for ~7.0% of the S&P 500. And with Nvidia NVDA representing ~6.75% of that basket, the latest price target hike for those shares is helping as well. Meanwhile, as we suspected would be the case given the weekend’s news, shares of Axon AXON are moving higher too.

Let’s dig into some of the morning upgrades and price target increases for our holdings.

Loop Upgrades Apple in a Catch-Up Call

Loop Capital upgraded Apple to "Buy" from "Hold" with a price target of $300, up from $170. Loop's action stems from some supply chain work that suggests Apple has an opportunity in the next few years to solidify itself as the consumer's generative artificial intelligence "base camp" of choice, just as it did for social media 15 years ago with the iPhone, and digital content consumption 20 years ago with the iPod. Our view is these realizations are a bit behind the curve and this is more of a catch-up move despite putting out one of the highest price targets on AAPL.

This is providing some lift to AAPL shares as well as the overall market. Lending another hand to AAPL are findings from Bloomberg that Apple's India revenue rose 33% year over year to almost $8 billion between March 2023 and March 2024, and up from $4.1B in March 2022. Naturally, the lead generator in that was iPhones, which made up over 50% of sales. This news is constructive in part because it showcases that Apple is not as reliant on the China market as it has been in the past.

TD Cowen Ups Its Nvidia Price Target

TD Cowen raised the firm's price target on Nvidia to $165 from $140 and keeps a "Buy" rating on the shares. TD channel checks point to upside in Datacenter for Nvidia as demand for Hopper/Blackwell-based AI systems continues to exceed supply.

Last week’s June-quarter revenue from Taiwan Semiconductor TSM supports that thinking and the outlook shared in Thursday’s earnings report from TSM is the next catalyst to watch for several of our holdings, including Nvidia, Qualcomm QCOM, Apple, and others.

Goldman Brings More Support for Morgan Stanley’s Earnings

Last week we talked about the positive asset management investment banking growth at JPMorgan Chase JPM and Citigroup C, and we saw that again this morning with Goldman Sachs GS earnings:

“Asset & Wealth Management were $3.88 billion for the second quarter of 2024, 27% higher than the second quarter of 2023 and 2% higher than the first quarter of 2024.”

“Investment banking fees were $1.73 billion, 21% higher than the second quarter of 2023, reflecting significantly higher net revenues in Debt underwriting, primarily driven by leveraged finance activity, higher net revenues in Equity underwriting, primarily from convertible and initial public offerings, and slightly higher net revenues in Advisory."

Goldman also said its investment banking fees backlog increased significantly compared with the end of the first quarter of 2024.

All of these comments suggest we should see a very positive earnings report out of Morgan Stanley MS tomorrow morning and good results for these business segments at Bank of America BAC.

Oppenheimer Boosts Its Trade Desk Target

Oppenheimer raised its price target on The Trade Desk TTD to $120 from $105, keeping an "Outperform" rating on the shares. The firm says Trade Desk "remains one of the cleanest secular growth stories" in internet/media, with consumers shifting to connected TV and e-commerce, aided by the scaling of retail media. Oppenheimer goes on to say that “leading agencies continue to increase 2024 advertising spending estimates, suggesting revenue upside for Trade Desk.”

These are all reasons why we first added TTD shares to the portfolio back in late April. Our current price target is $110, but we intend to revisit it as the current earnings season brings updates on digital advertising spend. We continue to see the 2024 presidential election goosing those figures in H2 2024.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL, NVDA, MS, BAC, TTD.