(This is CNBC Pro’s live coverage of Thursday’s analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) Bank stocks and a major chipmaker were in focus Thursday. KBW named Goldman Sachs, Truist and KeyCorp as its top bank plays for the new year. Meanwhile, analysts around Wall Street reacted to AMD unveiling the Instinct MI300X, a chip aimed at competing with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence semiconductors. Elsewhere, Stifel initiated Rivian with a buy rating, noting it sees big gains ahead for the EV maker. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. 7 a.m. ET: Stifel initiates Rivian with a buy rating, seeing 25% upside Rivian has a rosy growth outlook ahead, according to Stifel. The investment firm initiated coverage of the electric vehicle manufacturer with a buy rating, setting a target price of $23. This implies a 25% potential upside from the stock’s Wednesday close of $18.38. “Electric vehicle sales have faced stiff headwinds recently, driven by both macroeconomic factors (high interest rates, inflation, and recessionary worries) as well as EV specific headwinds including range anxiety, vehicle costs, model availability, and charging infrastructure. We believe these EV hurdles will shrink over the next few years, paving the way for sales growth,” wrote analyst Stephen Gengaro. As a specific catalyst, Gengaro pointed to Amazon’s agreement with the company for 100,000 cargo vehicles. Rivian also addresses the largest vehicle segment in the U.S. Additionally, he also expects to see growing margins next year. “Several drivers of 2024+ margin expansion including new technology (Enduro motor and LFP battery), better pricing, EDV deliveries, new zonal architecture, rising production, and impact of new supplier agreements,” he wrote. Rivian shares have struggled in 2023, falling slightly. However, the stock has bounced nearly 10% in December. — Lisa Kailai Han 6:41 a.m. ET: Bank of America lists Amazon as a top pick Bank of America is overwhelmingly bullish on Amazon , seeing improvements in the company’s underlying fundamentals and naming the e-commerce giant a top pick. “Amazon remains our top pick in the U.S. given projected share gains and margin expansion from regionalization, ad contribution upside, and AWS acceleration,” analyst Justin Post wrote. Specifically, Post sees advertising opportunities ramping up, primarily through Prime Video and partnerships with independent sellers. He’s also bullish on the continued optimization of Amazon’s regional logistics network, noting retail share gains will continue expanding in 2024 as faster deliveries lead to more frequent purchases. “Finally, we expect AWS revenue growth to reaccelerate to high-teens on easier comps and AI tailwinds,” the analyst added. Post’s $168 price objective implies that shares of Amazon could rally 16% from their Wednesday closing price. Amazon shares have already had a blockbuster year, rallying 72%. AMZN YTD mountain AMZN in 2023 — Lisa Kailai Han 6:35 a.m. ET: Morgan Stanley likes Oracle heading into earnings next week Morgan Stanley is feeling good about Oracle heading into the company’s fiscal second-quarter results next week, expecting a rebound after a disappointing first-quarter report. “Investors remain squarely focused on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) momentum but expectations have slightly moderated based on our conversations suggesting investors are still digesting the F1Q expectation miss, setting up for a potential bounce back in F2Q where we see several points that make us more comfortable on OCI achievability,” wrote analyst Keith Weiss in a note from Thursday. The analyst was bullish on Oracle Fusion Applications, used for enterprise resource planning. “Ultimately, our channel checks which skew more upmarket support continued durability in Fusion applications growth, as partners continue to cite healthy backlogs and strong win rates consistent with prior quarters,” he wrote. However, Weiss concluded that he’ll remain on the sidelines so long as Oracle stocks continue to trade expensive, above their appropriate risk-reward tradeoff. Weiss has an equal-weight rating on the stock. His price target of $107 is 4.5% lower than the stock’s Wednesday close of $112.03. — Lisa Kailai Han 6:08 a.m. ET: Bank of America names Nvidia a top pick Bank of America stuck by its buy rating for Nvidia and listed the chip manufacturer as a top pick following an investor meeting on Wednesday. “Takeaways [were] very positive on the size of the opportunity (excess of $250bn), importance to customers (4-5x [return on investment]), multi quarter visibility and underappreciated enterprise and sovereign demand drivers (71 countries interested),” wrote analyst Vivek Arya. “NVDA is still supply constrained but improving every quarter with multi quarter growth visibility, and well aligned with customers who take a year to design new AI data centers.” Specifically, Arya highlighted that the company’s genAI customers will receive $4 to $5 in returns for every $1 invested. Despite the company’s year-to-date rally of more than 200%, the annual addressable opportunity of $250 billion will be less than a third penetrated by next year — meaning that there could still be significant opportunities ahead, the analyst wrote. The analyst’s price objective of $700 means that shares of Nvidia could go flying nearly 54% from its Wednesday close of $455.03. NVDA YTD mountain NVDA in 2023 — Lisa Kailai Han 5:51 a.m. ET: What some analysts are saying after AMD’s AI event Major banks stuck by their ratings following Advanced Micro Devices’ December AI event. During the event, the semiconductor company showcased different opportunities in the AI space, as well as provided updates to their specific technologies and products, including the Instinct MI300X chip — which is aimed at competing with Nvidia’s AI semiconductor offerings. JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank all stood by their ratings for the stock, which respectively were neutral, buy, overweight and hold. “We believe that today’s event highlighted how AMD remains extremely well positioned to take advantage of the rapidly expanding AI TAM, as they continue to stack up customer partnerships and roll out products with impressive (and extremely competitive) performance metrics,” wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Seymore, who expects Advanced Micro Devices to lead the data center accelerator market alongside Nvidia. However, the analyst maintains his hold rating on this stock until cyclical headwinds lessen or the valuation levels become more attractive. While the event was overall positive, Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore wrote that it “did not break any new ground.” Moore’s price target of $128 corresponds to a 9.8% upside for the stock. At $110, Deutsche’s Seymore has the most conservative price target, implying a downside of 5.8%. JPMorgan’s December 2024 price target of $115 similarly sees a 1.6% decrease for the stock. On the other hand, Citi’s $136 target price sees the stock rallying 16% from here. — Lisa Kailai Han 5:51 a.m. ET: KBW names its top bank picks for 2024, including Goldman Sachs KBW highlighted Goldman Sachs , Truist and KeyCorp as its top large-cap banks heading into 2024, citing a slew of bullish drivers. The firm likes Goldman “given the backdrop is becoming more favorable for capital markets in 2024 due to declining pressures on interest rates,” analyst Christopher McGratty wrote. He also pointed to improving investment banking activity as a source of gains for the bank. As for Truist and KeyCorp, McGratty sees them benefiting from “significant” tangible book value growth and high return on average tangible common equity. The former should also capitalize on a rebound in capital markets. KBW has a outperform ratings on the three banks. Here’s where it sees each stock going from here: Goldman Sachs: Price target of $400, which implies 17% upside Truist: Price target of $36, implying 9% upside KeyCorp: Price target of $15, pointing to 15.7% gains from Wednesday’s close Banks overall have struggled in 2023, with the Invesco KBW Bank ETF (KBWB) losing 13%. Goldman is down marginally for the year, while Truist and KeyCorp lost more than 20% each. KBWB YTD mountain KBWB in 2023 — Fred Imbert
