Benzinga's Bulls And Bears Of The Week: Apple, Boeing, Netflix, Starbucks And More

Benzinga has examined the prospects for many investor favorite stocks over the past week.
The week's bullish calls included tech giants and an aerospace turnaround play.
Electric vehicle and video streaming leaders were among the bearish calls seen.

The three big U.S. indexes ended the week handily lower, led by the Nasdaq's more than 3% pullback. However, the Nasdaq still was up more than 5% for the first month of the year, while the Dow Jones industrials were only fractionally higher year to date and the S&P 500 landed in between them.

It was quite a wild week on Wall Street, with social-media-driven extreme short squeezes that rapidly spread and left everyone from brokerages and regulators to renowned short sellers scrambling to respond.

Tech giants took their turns in the earnings spotlight last week as well. Note though that not only were the world's two richest people at odds last week, but two other tech giant chiefs were as well.

As Americans worried about the chaotic roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, a third vaccine seemed poised for launch, while another has ended up on the sidelines. Elsewhere, the Federal Reserve left rates unchanged last week, and a big automaker said it plans to give up on gasoline-powered cars.

Through it all, Benzinga continued to examine the prospects for many of the stocks most popular with investors. Here are a few of this past week's most bullish and bearish posts that are worth another look.

Bulls

"Apple Analysts Lift Price Targets Following 'Jaw Dropper' Q1: 4 Sell-Side Takes" by Shanthi Rexaline examines why Apple Inc. AAPL may be on track to report strong double-digit growth over the next several quarters as its businesses continue to fire on all cylinders.

Priya Nigam's "Morgan Stanley Upgrades Boeing On Being 'Ready For Takeoff'" discusses how there are no significant incremental headwinds for Boeing Co BA in 2021. See why a top analyst says it is "a COVID-19 recovery play with upside."

Outperformance across every major product line highlights the strong secular positioning of Microsoft Corporation MSFT as IT spending returns. So says Melanie Schaffer's "5 Microsoft Analysts Break Down Q2 Beat As More Organizations Shift To Cloud."

In Jayson Derrick's "Is Now The Time To Buy Starbucks Stock? 6 Analysts Weigh In On Drop," see why analysts remain cautiously optimistic about Starbucks Corporation SBUX stock even though the company reported mixed quarterly results.

For additional bullish calls of the past week, also have a look at the following:

Bears

Chris Katje's "Auto Margins, Production Unit Questions Remain After Tesla's Q4" shows that questions about valuation of and prospects for Tesla Inc TSLA remain, despite strong delivery numbers for the latest quarter.

In Neer Varshney's "Long-Term Netflix Bear Admits He Got These Key Things Wrong About The Company," find out why a prominent long-term Netflix Inc. NFLIX bear says he was wrong about the company but remains bearish.

Visa Inc V and Mastercard Inc MA are likely to fall short on Wall Street expectations for cross-border revenue, according to "KeyBanc Downgrades Mastercard, Visa On Industry Trends" by Priya Nigam. Will domestic spending trends be enough?

"Why Wells Fargo Is Waiting For Better DoorDash Entry Point" by Jayson Derrick makes the case that DoorDash Inc DASH is now operating from a position of strength but the stock "looks expensive." When might investors find a more favorable entry point?

For more bearish takes, be sure to check out these posts:

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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Photo courtesy of Boeing.

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