Benzinga's Weekly Bulls And Bears: AMD, Marathon, Tesla, Uber, Walgreens And More

• Benzinga has examined the prospects for many investor favorite stocks over the past week.
• The week's bullish calls included the electric vehicle leader and a recovering retailer.
• A ride-sharing company and a semiconductor maker were among the bearish calls.

As the fourth-quarter earnings reporting season got underway last week, the major U.S. indexes lost a little ground. The Dow Jones industrial average concluded the week down about 1%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq retreated a little more.

Of course, much of the attention during the week was focused on the political drama in Washington, D.C. The U.S. president became the first ever to be impeached twice, after the prior week's chaos at the U.S. Capitol. Social media pulled the plug on the president and others who fomented the insurrection. The outgoing president also kept up the pressure on China, while the incoming president laid out a huge pandemic and economic recovery program.

In corporate news, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened a probe into a petroleum giant, a semiconductor leader announced management changes, a casino owner and Republican megadonor passed away, and the Detroit Auto Show was canceled.

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

Tesla Inc TSLA is not an auto company but rather a disruptive technology company. So says Shivdeep Dhaliwal's "Tesla Reaching $2T Valuation In 2 Years? Here's What Inspires Daniel Ives' Optimistic Target." Are U.S. political developments bullish for the Elon Musk-led company?

Priya Nigam's "Marathon Oil Gets Upgrade Due To Higher Oil Prices, More Cash Return To Shareholders" is focused on how Marathon Oil Corporation MRO is likely to generate around $2 billion over the next couple of years.

In Jayson Derrick's "Baird Upgrades Walgreens Boots, Expects Turnaround Of 'Train Wreck' Performance," see the several catalysts that could help turn around specialty retailer Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc WBA.

"Nvidia's Comprehensive Involvement In Gaming Market Continues Strong Demand: Rosenblatt" by Shanthi Rexaline examines how the competitive position of NVIDIA Corporation NVDA in the gaming GPU market will only get better.

In "Cantor Analyst Raises Aphria And Tilray Price Targets Amid Merger," Jelena Martinovic discusses why the impending merger with Tilray Inc. TLRY has overshadowed the recent disappointing quarterly results from Aphria Inc. APHA.

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

• Study: Investors Say Tesla, Apple And Microsoft Were 2020's Top Stocks
• Why KeyBanc Is Bullish On These 4 Casino Stocks

Bears

A Japanese tech investment giant has trimmed its stake in Uber Technologies Inc UBER, according to "SoftBank Dumps $2B Worth Of Uber Shares After Stock's Rally" by Aditya Raghunath. See how much of the stake in the ride-sharing company remains and whether it is still the largest investment in the firm's portfolio.

Shanthi Rexaline's "Why Intel's CEO Transition Is A Negative For AMD: Analyst" argues that the "blue sky" scenario for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD may start to crumble as its rival gets back on its feet. How much are AMD's share gains in servers likely to moderate?

In Chris Katje's "Palantir Vulnerable With Valuation And Lockup Concerns, Citi Says," see whether shares of software company Palantir Technologies Inc PLTR have run too far. Plus, a large share lockup expires around the same time as the upcoming earnings report.

"JPMorgan Says Hydrogen Stock Plug Power Trades At 'Steep Price,' Downgrades FuelCell Energy" by Jayson Derrick shows why the "compelling" path to $1.2 billion in sales by 2024 for Plug Power Inc PLUG did not impress one top analyst.

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

• Why Investment Strategist Ed Yardeni Is Worried About A Tech Stocks, Bitcoin-Led Market Meltdown
• 'You're A Fool' Who Will 'Lose Everything' If You Take On Debt To Invest In Crypto, Mark Cuban Says
• How Did Retail Perform During The Holidays?

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

Photo Courtesy of Pixabay

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