Notable analyst calls this week: Broadcom, Moderna and Abbott among top picks

The S&P 500 (SP500) closed in the red on Friday, after investors digested corporate results from big companies including Alphabet and Microsoft during the week.

Wall Street analysts issued fresh round of upgrades and downgrades. Here are some of the major calls for the week:

Broadcom gets bullish rating from D.A. Davidson

D.A. Davidson upgraded Broadcom (AVGO) to Buy from Neutral and upped its price target on the stock to $400 from $350.

“Our reading of the Anthropic S1 leads us to believe the IPO will proceed, Anthropic will raise its capital, and next year OpenAI will raise more capital in its own IPO, allowing Broadcom to meet its expectations for the next couple of years,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria wrote.

“At the current 16x multiple on 2027 EPS, AVGO is trading as if the chances of that happening are near zero, which creates significant upside if those deals both materialize,” Luria added.

William Blair is latest to downgrade Moderna on valuation

William Blair became the latest brokerage to downgrade Moderna (MRNA) to Market Perform from Outperform., citing valuation concerns following a late-stage win for its cancer shot developed with Merck (MRK).

Noting that Moderna is “up 545% year-to-date and up nearly 250% since the positive INTERPATH-001 trial news announced in August,” William Blair analyst Myles Minter downgraded the stock.

“Although we are incrementally more confident in success given the magnitude of efficacy shown in adjuvant melanoma, development in these additional tumors is not without meaningful clinical and biological risk,” Minter wrote.

Abbott downgraded on guidance cut

Argus Research cut its 12-month rating on Abbott (ABT) to Hold from Buy, citing the company’s recent decision to trim its full-year growth outlook.

With its Q3 2026 results last week, Abbott set its full-year outlook for comparable sales growth at about 6% down from 6.5% - 7.5% previously, an indication of slower growth in its key growth drivers—electrophysiology and diabetes care, according to analyst David Toung.

“The company faces pricing pressure in markets in which it seeks reimbursement coverage for its products,” Toung wrote, adding it also faces tariff-related costs, and “in the near term, it faces operational risks as it seeks to control costs while addressing supply chain issues.”

Jefferies upgrades Rivian to Buy

Jefferies upgraded Rivian (RIVN) to Buy from Hold, saying a recent share-price correction offers an attractive entry point as the electric-vehicle maker makes progress toward positive automotive gross margins and scales up its R2 model.

Analysts led by Philippe Houchois said third-quarter results showed an acceleration toward positive automotive gross margins, while improved delivery and earnings guidance extended a run of positive execution and capital-discipline surprises.

The brokerage maintained its $17 price target.

GF Securities upped its price target for AMD (AMD) to $720 ahead of its third-quarter results, set to be released on Nov. 3.

“[We] expect inline results but shy in current quarter guidance,” GF analyst Jeff Pu wrote in a note to clients. “We also note that investor expectation on AMD is high. Nevertheless, driven by the trend of agentic AI, we expect the company to reiterate the bullish outlook for its datacenter business in 2027 of well over 100% YoY. We remain bullish, backed by robust server CPU TAM, AMD’s strong server CPU product cycle, recent wafer supply increase and MI450/MI455X re-acceleration.”

Constellium (CSTM) was upgraded by J.P. Morgan to Overweight from Neutral with a $35 price target, following Q3 results, including better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA of $280M, while lifting full-year EBITDA guidance by 5% to $1.03B-$1.06B on solid Automotive Structures & Industry segment demand.