Investing

Elon Musk’s 4D Chess Move; Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades on Royalty Pharma, Twitter, UPS and More

Chris Lange

Published: April 14, 2022 2:34 pm

Markets were somewhat mixed on Thursday ahead of the holiday weekend. The Nasdaq was tanking, down over 1% while the Dow was pushing a solid gain of just less than half a percent. While markets are still trying to make up their minds as earnings season is underway, at least one big player is making a definitive more. Everyone’s favorite billionaire and now activist investor is back at it again.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is making headlines again with a now hostile takeover attempt of Twitter. Musk previously bought roughly a 9% stake in Twitter and was even offered a board seat. However, this board seat came with the stipulation that he could never own more than 15% of the company. Musk firmly rejected the offer feeding concerns for some that a hostile takeover might be in the works.

As it stands now, Musk owns a 9.2% stake in Twitter and he is offering to buy the entire platform for a price of 54.20 per share, which is an 18% premium from the most recent closing price of $45.85. According to Musk, this deal really offers over a 50% premium to investors from the day before he started investing and a 38% premium from the day his investment was made public. With even Elon making moves, it definitely looks like a stock-picker’s market.

24/7 Wall St. is reviewing additional analyst calls seen on Thursday. We have included the latest call on each stock, as well as a recent trading history and the consensus targets among analysts. Note that analyst calls seen earlier in the day were on Amazon, Chipotle, Etsy, Meta, Salesforce and many more.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY): Tesley Advisory Group downgraded to a Market Perform rating from Outperform and cut the price target to $15 from $18. The 52-week trading range is $12.39 to $44.51, and shares were trading near $17 apiece on Thursday.

CDW Corp. (NASDAQ: CDW): Stifel upgraded to a buy rating from Hold and raised the price target to $210 from $200. The stock traded near $174 on Thursday. The 52-week trading range is $162.47 to $208.71.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM): Morgan Stanley upgraded to an Overweight rating from Equal Weight and raised the price target to $150 from $147. Shares were trading near $127 on Thursday. The 52-week range is $114.56 to $146.12.

Royalty Pharma PLC (NASDAQ: RPRX): JPMorgan upgraded to an Overweight rating from Neutral with a $50 price target. The stock traded near $44 on Thursday. The 52-week trading range is $34.86 to $47.10.

Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (NYSE: RS): Exane BNP Paribas upgraded to an Outperform rating from Neutral. The stock traded near $194 on Thursday. The 52-week trading range is $135.46 to $198.44.

SeaGate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: STX): Susquehanna downgraded to a Negative rating from Neutral and cut the price target to $65 from $93. Shares were trading near $81. The 52-week range is $78.20 to $117.67.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR): KeyBanc Capital Markets downgraded to a Sector Weight rating from Overweight. Stifel downgraded to a Sell rating from Hold. The stock traded near $45 on Thursday. The 52-week trading range is $31.30 to $73.34.

United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS): Loop Capital upgraded to a Buy rating from Hold and cut the price target to $189 from $232. The 52-week trading range is $174.70 to $233.72, and shares were trading near $189 apiece on Thursday.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC): Susquehanna downgraded to a Neutral rating from Positive and cut the price target to $50 from $80. Shares were trading near $47 on Thursday. The 52-week range is $43.85 to $78.19.

W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE: GWW): Morgan Stanley downgraded to an Underweight rating from Equal Weight and cut the price target to $480 from $562. The 52-week trading range is $391.16 to $529.91, and shares were trading near $498 apiece on Thursday.