Wall Street Upgrades PayPal, Lockheed Martin and Upstart Holdings: Here Are The Driving Factors

Stocks belonging to the banking, payments, and defense sectors experienced Wall Street optimism on Wednesday. Bernstein upgraded PayPal, Bank of America raised its price target on Lockheed Martin, and Mizuho hiked its expectations from AI-lending platform Upstart Holdings. Here’s what drove the analyst enthusiasm for these stocks.

1. PayPal: Bernstein has reportedly upgraded PayPal to ‘Outperform’ from 'Market Perform’ while raising the price target to $78 from $71. The firm remains optimistic on PayPal’s turnaround in transaction gross profit performance. Bernstein is also optimistic about the Braintree pricing initiatives and Venmo monetization. PayPal hiked its full-year forecast for the second time during its quarterly earnings announcement. For the current year, the firm expects earnings per share to come in at $3.88-$3.98 versus an earlier estimate of approximately $3.65.

2. Lockheed Martin: Bank of America has upgraded Lockheed Martin to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ and has raised the price target to $635 from $465. Strong global demand and resumption of upgraded F-35s with Tech Refresh-3 packages have led to this optimism. Last week, the aerospace and defense manufacturer raised its annual sales target with the firm now expecting the figure to be between $70.50 billion and $71.50 billion, versus an earlier forecast of $68.50 billion to $70 billion. Retail investors reacted positively to the upgrade with the Stocktwits sentiment meter trending in the bullish territory (68/100) amid high message volumes. 

3. Upstart: Mizuho reportedly double-upgraded the stock to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Underperform’ and raised the price target to $31 from $17. The firm believes lower interest rates, improving borrower risk, lower bad loans and positive industry commentary are clear tailwinds for Upstart’s forward performance. The firm is scheduled to report its second quarter earnings on August 6 after market hours where Wall Street analysts expect a loss at $0.39 per share on revenues of $125 million.