Wall Street Upgrades with Top Stock Picks

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•  04 May 2026
 

$AAPL got one of the more meaningful upgrades of the day, with Morgan Stanley lifting its price target to $330 from $315 while maintaining an Overweight rating. The catalyst was Apple March quarter earnings, where Services revenue grew 16.3% year-over-year, well above the bank own 14% estimate. Morgan Stanley also raised its FY2026 EPS estimate to $8.89 and its FY2027 estimate to $10.23, keeping the valuation multiple fixed at 32x, a signal the bank is betting on earnings power, not sentiment. At a current price of $277.11, the implied upside to $330 is roughly 19%. With over 2.35 billion active devices and a $100 billion buyback authorization, the earnings compounding story here is hard to dismiss.

$AMD heads into earnings today with the stock having already surged from roughly $200 to recent highs near $360, and Loop Capital moved to Buy with a $345 target. Analysts expect Q1 revenue around $9.88 billion and EPS of $1.27, both up about 33% year-over-year. Deutsche Bank acknowledged the fundamental strength but held its Hold rating, arguing much of the upside is already in the price after the recent run. At $341.58 with earnings after the bell, this one carries event risk in both directions. Loop conviction is based on AI and data center capex tailwinds that continue to benefit AMD GPU and accelerator lineup.

$AVGO also received a Morgan Stanley upgrade to Buy with a $325 target, though at a current price of $416.82 the target is actually below where shares are trading, an unusual setup that may reflect target lag or a conservative reset on valuation. Broadcom continues to benefit from AI chip demand and its software integration following the VMware acquisition, and Morgan Stanley constructive view on the broader semiconductor and AI infrastructure theme applies here too.

$GETY received a Buy upgrade from Morgan Stanley with a $325 target. The stock trades at just $0.77, making this a speculative small-cap situation where the analyst target implies extraordinary upside on paper. Volume at 811K is below its average of 1.16M, and investors should treat this with appropriate caution. Analyst upgrades on micro-cap names carry very different risk profiles than those on mega-caps.

$GOOG got an upgrade from BofA to Buy with a $430 target, and at $379.91 that implies about 13% upside. The thesis leans heavily on AI investment tailwinds. Goldman Sachs noted that AI-related spending could drive roughly 40% of S&P 500 EPS growth this year, and Google sits at the intersection of that trend as both an infrastructure spender and an AI monetization beneficiary through Search, Cloud, and YouTube. With 137 hedge fund holders and strong institutional conviction, this is one of the cleaner risk/reward setups among today upgrades.

$MCD was upgraded by UBS to Buy with a $365 price target, currently trading at $284.46. UBS analyst Dennis Geiger pointed to an overhauled menu, refreshed marketing, and defensive earnings characteristics as key reasons for optimism even amid near-term pressure. McDonald reports earnings on May 7, which is the near-term catalyst to watch. In a volatile macro environment with oil pushing above $100 and geopolitical uncertainty around Iran weighing on sentiment, a defensive consumer staple with a clear margin recovery story has real appeal.

$MU was upgraded by BofA to Buy with a $430 target. At $577.27, up 6.48% today, the stock is already well above that target, raising questions about whether this upgrade is already priced in or whether the target will be revised higher. Melius Research recently initiated with a $700 target and a Buy, arguing the AI memory cycle through HBM, DRAM, and NAND has unusual durability. If the AI infrastructure buildout continues accelerating, Micron earnings leverage is substantial.

$NOW received a BofA Buy upgrade with a $430 target, currently priced at $92.59. Note that volume data shows N/A, which may reflect a data anomaly. ServiceNow beat the high end of its Q1 2026 guidance on both revenue and profitability, and its early close of the Armis acquisition deepens its cybersecurity exposure. The new Autonomous Workforce product line, AI agents executing enterprise jobs end-to-end, positions the company well for the next wave of enterprise AI spending.

$NVDA got a Loop Capital upgrade to Buy with a $345 target. NVIDIA trades at $198.96, putting the implied upside at around 73% from current levels, by far the widest gap among today upgrades. The ongoing AI infrastructure spending cycle, with hyperscalers committing hundreds of billions to data center build-outs, keeps NVIDIA at the center of the conversation. Loop thesis includes continued AI momentum and strong demand visibility across training and inference workloads.

$ORCL was upgraded by BofA to Buy with a $430 target. Oracle trades at $180.14, up nearly 5% today, implying about 139% upside to target, a large gap that may reflect the bank long-term cloud and AI infrastructure thesis. Oracle recently secured $16 billion in financing for a major Michigan data center that will support OpenAI workloads, and management believes cloud demand for AI is growing faster than supply capacity, setting up a strong multi-year revenue ramp.

$PLTR received a Loop Capital upgrade to Buy with a $345 target. At $145.89, the implied upside is around 136%. Palantir reports earnings today after the bell, and Loop conviction comes from management meetings, field checks, and expert calls pointing to continued AI and defense momentum. The company has beaten revenue and EPS estimates every quarter for the past two years, and its status as a key software provider to the U.S. Department of Defense gives it a durable, high-visibility revenue base.

$QCOM was upgraded by BofA to Buy with a $430 target. Shares trade at $168.66, down 4.78% today despite the positive analyst action. Cantor Fitzgerald recently kept a Neutral with a $150 target, citing DRAM-related headwinds on Android demand, so there is genuine disagreement on the Street here. QUALCOMM management noted handset demand may be near a trough, which is the key bull case: if the cycle turns, the setup becomes attractive. The edge AI and IoT pipeline, including the Dragonwing IQ10 platform with 700 TOPS of on-device AI performance, is the longer-term growth driver.

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