A customer pays for his purchases inside a Lowe’s store in Cary, North Carolina.
Jim R. Bounds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Wednesday:
Raymond James initiated Lululemon & Nike as ‘outperform’ & Footlocker as ‘underperform’
Raymond James said in its initiation of several retailers that overall the athletic industry was well positioned for “impressive” growth.
“We believe the Athletic industry is positioned well for a continuation of impressive growth in the high-single-digit range for at least the next decade given a long-term mega trend towards comfort and health/wellness that has redefined the way consumers dress dating back to at least the 1980s. We point to the expanding acceptance of athletic footwear in most daily use cases (including work) today vs. simply for sport participation 30+ years ago as an example of this shift. We prefer brands (LULU/Strong Buy, NKE/Outperform, UAA/Outperform) over distribution (DKS/Underperform, FL/Outperform), although we believe Foot Locker is exceptionally well positioned as the single best retailer of global athletic footwear product.”
Deutsche Bank upgraded BlackRock to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’
Deutsche upgraded the global management investment company and said it saw more “bullish” macro assumptions over the next 12 months.
“After a relatively good 3Q earnings season and a much improved backdrop on macro sentiment upon positive traction in global trade resolutions, we are adopting more bullish macro assumptions in our forecasting for the next 12 months. This drives positive upward revisions to estimates & price targets for most of our coverage, and we are upgrading three stocks to Buy from Hold: BlackRock, Invesco, & State Street.”