These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron's, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts' thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron's. Some of the reports' issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.

Apple -- AAPL-Nasdaq Buy -- $181.46 on April 8 by BofA Securities In recent weeks, Apple stock has moved significantly to the downside (down 25.5% year to date and 23.5% since last earnings relative to S&P 500 index declines of 13.7% and 16.6%, respectively). Geopolitical uncertainty around tariffs has been the primary reason, compounded to some degree by the delay of Siri features with Apple Intelligence.

In our view, the pullback presents a particularly enhanced buying opportunity for investors to own a high-quality name. Specifically, we looked at short-term and long-term price performance following periods when Apple's forward price/earnings ratio was less than 25 times [it was recently 23.5 times]....Historically, in the three months following a P/E compression of less than 25 times, Apple's share price performance averaged 7%/8%/14%/17% over the three/six/nine/12 months, respectively....

We reiterate our Buy rating on Apple's stable cash flows and earnings resiliency, and as a potential beneficiary of AI use on edge devices. Price objective: $250.

Meta Platforms -- META-Nasdaq Buy -- $504.73 on April 4 by Roth Over the weekend, in a surprise move arguably triggered by recent stock price movements, Meta Platforms released the long-anticipated Llama 4 family of large language models. This represents a significant advancement in Meta's open-source offerings as well as a significant development in the artificial-intelligence industry as a whole....Under normal market sentiment, we think that Meta shares would have reacted positively by as much as plus 5% after the Llama 4 announcement.

We continue to view Meta as the best AI investment proxy for a direct-to-consumer app. While tariff noise might linger and weigh on the second-quarter outlook season, we see Meta shares as attractive for medium-term investors. Price target: $730.

Eli Lilly & Co. -- LLY-NYSE Buy -- $723.73 on April 8 by Goldman Sachs We assume coverage on Eli Lilly with a Buy rating (from Neutral) and a 12-month price target of $888 ($892 prior). At current levels, we see a compelling entry point into the sector's premier top-line grower. Our Buy thesis rests on two premises.

First, informed by an extensive rebuild of our anti-obesity medication, or AOM, market model to better reflect segmentation across patient populations and emerging modalities on the back of key opinion leader surveys/market diligence -- coupled with the company's manufacturing capabilities, early-mover advantage, and late-stage cardiometabolic portfolio that sets a high bar covering nearly every emerging mechanism -- we believe that Eli Lilly will maintain its pole position as the leader in a market set to triple in size from about $28 billion today to about $95 billion by 2030, even on our flatter total addressable market projections....

Second, we believe that Eli Lilly has put a strategic process in place to iterate the success of its obesity/incretin franchise across the rest of its portfolio.

JetBlue Airways -- JBLU-Nasdaq Outperform -- $3.94 on April 4 by Raymond James We are tactically upgrading JetBlue Airways from Market Perform to Outperform following the recent selloff (alongside the market in response to reciprocal tariff announcements), given our view of low bankruptcy risk and a mergers-and-acquisitions floor, especially against a backdrop of negative buy-side and sell-side sentiment. Importantly, we are not aware of M&A discussions, but believe that JetBlue's assets (notably at JFK/FLL airports and the fleet order book) make it an attractive target.

In turn, we believe that JetBlue is compelling for those looking to be nimble, and see the stock as likely range-bound between an about $3.50 hypothetical takeout value floor and an about $6 ceiling (JetBlue's convertible bonds strike at $6.12).

Risks include possible near-term earnings misses from the volatile macro setting (exacerbated by geared-turbofan-related groundings), acceleration in year-to-year capacity growth in second-half 2025, elevated leverage, and potential incremental pricing pressures if legacy airlines compensate for business-demand weakness by reallocating to near-international (leisure) markets despite the current benign setup. Price target: $5.

Occidental Petroleum -- OXY-NYSE Hold -- $38.75 on April 7 by TD Cowen We are downgrading Occidental Petroleum from Buy to Hold as we shift our preference to gas-weighted equities following a $10 per barrel decline in West Texas Intermediate pricing in the wake of recent tariff announcements and OPEC unleashing spare capacity. Occidental shares have come under increased pressure in recent days amid individual corporate challenges. We lower our price target to $45, which represents 0.75 times our $60 per share sum of parts valuation....

Occidental's cash-flow profile becomes less attractive as the company continues to spend growth capital outside its energy-and-exploration business while maintaining higher leverage of about 1.3 times 2025E as compared to large-cap peers of about 0.8 times. As cash flows erode, Occidental's return-on-capital program that has already taken a back seat to deleveraging continues to lag with an indefinite overhang from Berkshire preferreds.

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April 11, 2025 19:29 ET (23:29 GMT)

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