Stocks were bouncing on Friday morning after the first trading day of 2025 failed to show overall gains. The market is generally fighting higher bond yields but strategists are predicting over 12% upside on the S&P 500 in 2025. Investors need to be positioning for 2025 with a new regime in Washington D.C., expectations of tariffs, new policies, lower regulations and government spending cuts all expected to play a role.

Tactical Bulls searches the daily flow of analyst research reports covering the upgrades, downgrades and initiations from Wall Street looking for new ideas that might have otherwise been overlooked or missed. These analyst reports generally try to look out a year out into the future with ratings and target prices.

Tactical Bulls always reminds its readers and investors that no single analyst report should ever be the sole basis to buy or sell a stock. That decision to buy or sell, or hold or short sell, is up to each investor and the decision should be made with a financial advisor. And there are of course no assurances that any of the price predictions and the scenarios that back the calls up will actually come to fruition.

Some analyst calls are just reactionary to earnings and other news. Other analyst calls are preemptive ahead of key events and developments and can move stocks. Short-term traders get a glimpse of immediate price reactions to news and to the analyst calls. Long-term investors get a picture of new buy, sell and hold ratings with targets looking a year out.

These are the top analyst initiations, upgrades and downgrades from brokerage firms and independent research firms on Friday, January 3, 2025.

American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) was maintained as Overweight but the price target was cut down to $83 from $89 at JPMorgan. AIG closed up 0.25% at $72.98 ahead of the call.

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) was reiterated as Buy with a $104 price objective at BofA Securities. The report noted that Baidu was closer to bottoming out with a high cash position, with search and AI opportunities in China, and its robotaxi expansion. Baidu shares closed down 1.9% at $82.70 on the first trading day of 2025 and the shares were indicated up 0.5% at $83.10 ahead of Friday’s open.

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $115 price target (versus $86.75 close) at Raymond James.

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) fell 2.9% to $171.87 on the first day of 2025 despite a large price target hike from $184 to $215 at Deutsche Bank. Now there is a report from Zacks calling it the Bear of the Day. Zacks noted that Boeing’s shares have faced turbulence over the last year and have underperformed in a big way.

Boyd Gaming Corp. (NYSE: BYD) was raised to Buy from Hold and its target price was raised to $92 from $73 at Jefferies. Boyd closed down almost 1% at $71.83 ahead of the call.

Caesars Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: CZR) was maintained as Buy but the price target was cut to $43 from $52 (versus $32.59 close) at Jefferies. JPMorgan maintained its Overweight rating but trimmed its target to $57 from $58.

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Carvana Co. (NYSE: CVNA) closed down almost 2% at $199.56 on the first day of 2025 after the short-seller report from Hindenburg Research said it had boosted its numbers by related-party accounting games. Zacks has taken the opposite view, calling it the Bull of the Day as its shares are up over 300% from a year ago and that nothing has been able to slow down its stock.

Chewy, Inc. (NYSE: CHWY) was raised to Outperform from Peer Perform with a $42 price target at Wolfe Research. Chewy closed up 1.1% at $33.87 on the first day of 2025 and was indicated up over 2% at $34.75 on Friday morning.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) was reiterated as Outperform and its price target was raised to $85 from $82 (versus $69.94 close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Citi remains one of the few large banks still trading under book value.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised to $75 from $68 at Citigroup. eBay closed up 0.5% at $62.27 on the first trading day of 2025 ahead of this call.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) was raised to Buy from Hold and its target price was raised to $69 from $60 at Jefferies. LVS closed down about 2.8% at $49.90 ahead of this call.

LendingClub Corporation (NYSE: LC) was reiterated as Overweight and its price target was raised to $20 from $15 at Piper Sandler. LendingClub closed down almost 0.4% at $16.13 ahead of the call.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was downgraded to Hold from Buy but its price target as raised to $950 from $800 at Loop Capital. The firm noted that Netflix valuation is high based on reasonable expectations of future cash flows making it hard to value the stock much higher even with a boost from wrestling and recent sports games like NFL. Netflix closed down 0.5% at $886.73 on the first day of 2025 and its stock was indicated up almost 0.5% at $890.80 ahead of Friday’s open.

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Rocket Companies, Inc. (NYSE: RKT) was reiterated as Underperform and its target price was lowered to $10.50 from $11.50 (versus $10.85 prior close) at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised to $400 from $298 at Canaccord Genuity. Tesla closed down about 6.1% at $379.29 ahead of the call from the drop in deliveries. Despite the drop in EV deliveries, Canaccord noted that Tesla’s generational opportunities include EVs, autonomy and AI, energy storage, and robotics.

UBS Group AG (NYSE: UBS) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Exane BNP Paribas. UBS ADSs closed down 0.1% at $30.28 on the first trading day of 2025 and its shares were indicated up 4% at $31.50 ahead of Friday’s open. UBS is one of the few European banks that was trading above book value in a late-2024 review looking forward.

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) was maintained as Outperform but its target price was cut $82 from $90 at Mizuho. Western Digital closed up 3.7% at $61.87 on the first trading day of 2025.

Many other analyst calls were also seen ahead of Friday’s open.

AON plc (NYSE: AON) was reiterated as Overweight and the price target was raised to $394 from $379 at JPMorgan.

Intapp, Inc. (NASDAQ: INTA) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.

Marsh & McLennan (NYSE: MMC) was maintained as Neutral but its price target was raised to %256 from $251 (versus $211.34 close) at JPMorgan.

Portland General Electric Company (NYSE: POR) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.

The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR) was maintained as Overweight and its price target was raised to $256 from $251 (versus $240.65 close) at JPMorgan.

Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: RRR) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and its target price was cut down to $51 from $64 at Jefferies. Red Rock Resorts closed down about 3.3% at $44.72 ahead of this call.

RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG) was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy and its price target was lowered down to $45 from $50 (versus $34.83 close) at Raymond James.

Trip.com Group Limited (NASDAQ: TCOM) was reiterated as Buy and its ADS price target was raised to $78 from $73 (versus $64.77 close) at Citi.

Vertex Inc. (NASDAQ: VERX) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James. This piece originally noted that it was Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. getting the downgrade, but it was Vertex Inc. that was named in the report.

Vista Energy, S.A.B. de CV. (NYSE: VST) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.

Workiva Inc. (NYSE: WK) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $135 price target (versus $108.87 prior close) at Raymond James.

Wynn Resorts, Limited (NASDAQ: WYNN) was reiterated as Hold but its price target was trimmed down to $105 from $109 (versus $83.80 close) at Jefferies.

If you missed Thursday’s top analyst calls to kick off 2025, they were in shares of Alphabet, Astera, Cloudflare, Meta, Nike, SoFi, Uber, UnitedHealth and many more stocks.

Also, if you really want to see how the markets performed sector by sector and asset class by asset class, this shows how each sector, class and thematic ETF performed in 2024.