Every single trading day starts the same way for me: coffee in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling through the overnight analyst notes before the bell rings. Some mornings it’s quiet. This Thursday morning in mid-December? Absolute firehose. The upgrades, initiations, and price target hikes came so fast I almost spilled my coffee. If you’re positioned in tech, payments, or even quantum computing, today felt personal.
Let me walk you through the calls that actually matter, the ones moving stocks in pre-market and the ones I think will matter six months from now. No fluff, no recycled headlines, just what I saw when I read every single note.
Thursday’s Standout Analyst Action That Caught My Eye
Look, I’ve been doing this long enough to know most “biggest calls” lists are just noise. Today actually delivered a handful of notes that made me immediately open the trading terminal. Here’s what stood out.
Visa Gets Its Mojo Back – Bank of America Finally Upgrades
Perhaps the call I’m most excited about today is Bank of America’s upgrade of Visa from neutral to buy. Their exact words? “A great business on sale.” And honestly, they’re not wrong.
After getting absolutely punished alongside everything payments-related this year, Visa shares now sit at levels that haven’t been this attractive since early 2023. The analysts pointed out that recent underperformance has created very compelling return potential, especially with cross-border volumes continuing to accelerate and the core network showing remarkable pricing power.
Meanwhile, they downgraded PayPal to neutral citing lack of near-term visibility on branded checkout recovery. The contrast couldn’t be clearer: when money rotates back into quality, Visa tends to be first in line.
Oracle – The AI Hyperscaler Skepticism Feels Overdone
Oracle shares have given back their entire post-OpenAI partnership move and then some. Bank of America acknowledges the skittish investor confidence but pushes back hard, lowering their target to $300 from $368 while keeping the buy rating.
“We see potential for sentiment and estimates to reset higher.”
I’ve been pounding the table on Oracle’s cloud infrastructure opportunity for months. The combination of existing enterprise relationships, the TikTok deal, and now meaningful AI compute revenue makes this pullback feel like the market testing whether you actually believe in the story or just liked the momentum.
Roku Suddenly Has the Cleanest Internet Story Heading into 2026?
Jefferies upgrading Roku to buy from hold with revenue upside into 2026 might be the most under-the-radar important call today. Their thesis is simple but powerful: management finally has cost discipline locked in while platform revenue (ads + content distribution) keeps accelerating.
When a connected TV platform can grow revenue double-digits while keeping operating expense growth in mid-single digits, the margin expansion math gets ridiculous fast. Add in Amazon potentially launching ads on Prime Video and Walmart pushing Vizio harder, and Roku’s position as the neutral Switzerland of streaming starts looking even more valuable.
Nvidia – Still “Compelling” at 25x 2026 Earnings
Yes, another Nvidia note. But hear me out Bank of America’s take: even after the massive run, shares trade at just 0.5x the company’s expected earnings growth rate versus ~2x for other Mag-7 names.
When you frame it that way, the valuation actually looks reasonable for a company still guiding to 60-70% data center growth. The real question isn’t whether Nvidia is expensive today, it’s whether the AI infrastructure buildout has even reached the steep part of the S-curve yet. My answer remains no.
Meta Platforms – The Most Debated Stock with Positive Skew
Goldman Sachs calling Meta one of their top picks for 2026 while Morgan Stanley sticks with overweight (despite cutting target to $750) tells you everything about current sentiment. Everyone knows the story, almost no one wants to own it right now.
But $155 billion 2026 opex guide that might prove conservative, Advantage+ shopping campaigns scaling massively, and the eventual monetization of WhatsApp/Instagram direct messaging when combined with Llama models? That’s a lot of optionality trading at barely 20x next year’s earnings.
The Quantum Computing Initiations Are Wild
Mizuho coming out with outperform ratings across quantum computing names, Rigetti at $50 target, IonQ at $90, D-Wave at $46, feels like 2021 all over again. Except this time we actually have revenue inflection points and government contracts.
These stocks will be volatile as hell, but if you’re looking for the next frontier after AI chips, quantum feels like the logical next bet. The fact that pure-play names still have market caps under $10 billion suggests asymmetric upside if any of them actually deliver commercial utility in the next 3-5 years.
Quick Hits – Everything Else Worth Knowing
- Piper Sandler raising Alphabet target to $365 after their ad buyer survey showed Google Search taking share for first time in three years. Pmax and Gemini driving incremental revenue.
- UBS calling KKR a “mini-Berkshire Hathaway” in their buy initiation. When private equity trades at public market multiples but grows like private, interesting things happen.
- Goldman initiating Abercrombie & Fitch and Boot Barn at buy, retail names that actually have store opening runways left in 2025.
- Deutsche Bank upgrading JB Hunt to buy with 2027 earnings estimates 15% above consensus on intermodal margin recovery.
- Unity Software getting upgraded at Piper on healthy mobile ads market, sometimes the simplest stories work best.
The common thread running through almost every strong call today? Analysts identifying quality compounders that have been unfairly punished in the recent rotation out of tech/growth. Whether it’s Visa’s network moat, Oracle’s sticky enterprise relationships, or Roku’s platform scale, the message feels consistent.
Markets rotate, sentiment shifts, but businesses with real economic moats tend to win over long enough time horizons. Today’s analyst action feels like the early stages of recognition that some of these names got too cheap relative to their fundamentals.
Of course, tomorrow could bring completely different notes. That’s what makes this game endlessly fascinating. But right now, on this Thursday morning in December, the smart money seems to be dipping its toe back into quality at better prices.
I’ll be watching Visa and Oracle volume closely at the open. Those feel like the two with the most immediate upside catalysts. The rest? Happy to let them prove the skeptics wrong slowly over the next few quarters.
Either way, days like today remind me why I still love doing this after all these years. The market never stops teaching, if you’re willing to listen.
