Analyst Ratings

Krungsri Securities said high US bond yields remain a drag on the market. This week the market is focused on the September 26 CPI inflation report, with the market expecting plus 3.6% year-on-year and plus 0.6% month-on-month, based on energy accounting for roughly 6.0-6.5% of the US inflation basket and September 26 crude oil prices rising 16% month-on-month, which suggests the market has already priced in some of the risk. The market is also waiting to assess the war situation, where news flow remains volatile, with the main view still that the war has passed its peak but will drag on at least until before the US midterm elections. Domestically, the market is waiting to monitor flooding, which is expected to have limited impact on the market if it is not severe. For this week's top picks, it recommends DELTA, PTTGC and SCC. DELTA has a 2027 forecast target price of 320 baht on the accelerating AI investment cycle. PTTGC has a Bloomberg consensus target price of 63 baht on upside from building synergies through a petrochemical joint venture with SCC. SCC has a 2027 forecast target price of 320 baht on upside from building synergies through a petrochemical joint venture with PTTGC. Last week's top picks, DELTA, PTTGC and KBANK, delivered an average return of plus 2.43% versus plus 0.38% for the SET.

Certara's fair value estimate has edged up to US$8.71 from US$8.19, with analyst price targets clustering in the US$9 to US$10 range ahead of upcoming results. UBS resumed coverage of Certara with a Neutral rating and a US$10 price target, while Barclays lifted its target from US$7.50 to US$9 and Baird moved from US$6 to US$7. Revenue growth expectations have shifted from a decline of 0.64% to an increase of 1.49%, while the net profit margin is reported at 3.76% on both the previous and updated figures and the future P/E has changed from 87.9x to 94.4x. Barclays describes an "extremely tough setup" for life science and diagnostic stocks, and UBS says it wants more evidence of a software revenue recovery before taking a more positive view. The discount rate is broadly unchanged, moving from 8.57% to 8.59%.

Amazon.com is reportedly considering moving roughly $8 billion of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special-purpose vehicle financed by outside investors and then leasing the hardware back, a structure that would make part of its AI buildout more asset-light as capital spending is expected to reach $220 billion this year. AWS revenue rose 37% to $42.2 billion in the second quarter, its fastest growth in more than four years, and contract backlog reached $496 billion, while CEO Andy Jassy said the company still lacks enough capacity to meet demand. Trailing-12-month free cash flow swung to negative $7.6 billion from positive $18.2 billion a year earlier as infrastructure spending accelerated. Amazon trades at 23.64 times forward earnings, and Tigress Financial recently raised its target to $385 from $315, arguing earnings from the investment cycle are approaching an inflection point where they grow faster than operating capital. The proposal also raises the question of residual chip value, since Grace Blackwell will eventually be superseded by Vera Rubin while Amazon assumes semiconductor generations remain useful for at least five years.

Veeva Systems is drawing renewed attention after Eli Lilly committed to deploying its Vault CRM globally in August and Amgen followed in September, moving established customers onto the company's newer commercial platform. For the quarter ended July 31, Veeva reported revenue up 18% to $928 million, including 16% subscription growth, while GAAP operating income rose 40% to $275 million and adjusted diluted EPS climbed to $2.35 from $1.99. The company's updated full-year outlook calls for approximately $3.68 billion in revenue and adjusted diluted EPS of approximately $9.21. Veeva shares trade at roughly 29.7x forward earnings versus 15.5x for Salesforce, and the stock returned 61.1% between March 30 and October 5. Insider Monkey tracked 61 hedge funds holding Veeva in the second quarter, down from 62 in the first, with short interest at 3.35% of float.

Disco Corporation reported preliminary non-consolidated sales of ¥118.5 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, up from ¥85.3 billion a year earlier, with first-half sales of ¥213.6 billion versus ¥160.8 billion in the prior-year period. The semiconductor equipment maker also received a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) after analysts steadily raised earnings estimates over the past three months. The preliminary figures came in comfortably above the prior year and ahead of earlier non-consolidated guidance, reinforcing the near-term earnings story. The company continues to flag volatile semiconductor and electronic components demand, leaving cyclicality risk embedded in its investment case. Two fair value views in the Simply Wall St Community on Disco span roughly ¥25,000 to ¥81,000.

ON Semiconductor and Synaptics have renegotiated the terms of their merger, cutting the announced aggregate value to approximately $5.7 billion, or $123 per Synaptics share in cash, from approximately $7 billion under the original agreement. Jim Cramer said on the October 6 episode of Mad Money that the amended price was the main reason his view of ON Semiconductor changed, arguing the company is now getting the same assets at a much more reasonable price. Management expects immediate accretion to adjusted EPS after closing, plus opportunities beyond the previously announced $200 million in annual run-rate synergies, with completion still expected by mid-2027 subject to shareholder and remaining regulatory approvals. ON Semiconductor plans to fund the deal with cash and borrowing, including a commitment for up to $2.45 billion in senior secured term financing. In its August earnings release, management projected AI data center revenue would more than double in 2026, while second-quarter revenue rose 9% to approximately $1.60 billion, with adjusted diluted EPS of $0.74 and free cash flow of $425.4 million; at its September investor event the company outlined a $213 billion addressable market by 2030, an estimate of market opportunity rather than a revenue target. Hedge fund ownership rose to 86 funds holding the stock in the second quarter from 58 in the first, with Jericho Capital Asset Management initiating a position of 4.88 million shares and Citadel Investment Group increasing its holdings by 1672% to 1.93 million shares, while short interest stands at 10.43% of float.

Jim Cramer used the October 6 episode of Mad Money to argue that CVS Health Corporation has become too cheap to ignore after its stock plunged from $110 to $86, even as the company's earnings outlook improved. CVS reported second-quarter revenue of $106.1 billion, up 7.3% year over year, with adjusted EPS rising to $2.58 from $1.81 and GAAP diluted EPS climbing to $2.31 from $0.80, while the insurance business's medical benefit ratio improved to 87.4% from 89.9%. The company raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $7.90 to $8.10 and its operating cash flow outlook to at least $11.5 billion, and management placed a reasonable floor under 2027 adjusted EPS at $8.44. Cramer said a possible 5% hit to next year's earnings should not send a stock down 22%, knocking nearly $30 billion off the company's market cap, especially not when CVS remains very strong. The uncertainty centers on Caremark, where the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' July proposal would pay average sales price minus 33.4% for drugs acquired through the 340B program, and where the FTC's July settlement would separate manufacturer fees from drug list prices and add transparency and options to move away from rebate guarantees and spread pricing. CVS also said Caremark membership would decline in 2027 as contracts change and some insurance clients withdraw from markets. Using the October 7 closing price of $87.95 and the $8 midpoint of CVS's 2026 adjusted EPS guidance, the stock trades at approximately 11x this year's projected adjusted earnings, versus approximately 9.1x for Cigna based on its $278.51 closing price and its 2026 adjusted earnings guidance floor of $30.45. According to Insider Monkey's data, 88 hedge funds held CVS Health in the second quarter, compared with 84 in the first quarter, with Pzena Investment Management the most prominent shareholder at around 11.77 million shares and GQG Partners increasing its holdings by 25137% to 7.955 million shares, while short interest stood at 1.27% of the public float.

Scatec has started construction on the 900 MW Shadwan onshore wind project in Egypt alongside EDF, backed by a US$150 million equity bridge loan package. The news lifted Scatec shares 5.53% in a single day to NOK104.0, contributing to a 90 day share price gain of 9.36%, though the year to date share price return remains down 3.61% and the 1 year total shareholder return is slightly negative. The most followed analyst narrative puts Scatec's fair value at NOK129.89, roughly 20% above the last close, while the SWS DCF model estimates a future cash flow value of NOK10.05, framing the stock as very expensive. Scatec remains heavily dependent on government tenders and project execution, so policy setbacks or construction delays could quickly challenge the undervalued narrative.

HSBC upgraded Synopsys to Buy from Hold on September 25 and raised its price target from $490 to $700, implying a multiple of nearly 35 times HSBC's fiscal 2027 EPS estimates. Analyst Frank Lee said the company is evolving beyond its traditional slow-growth software profile as its licensing-plus-royalty model and agentic AI tools create a new path to benefit from AI. The upgrade follows Synopsys' fiscal third-quarter results, when revenue rose 42% to $2.48 billion, including approximately $711 million from Ansys, alongside higher full-year guidance. Synopsys announced a multiyear agreement worth more than $1 billion with Amazon on September 30, combining IP licensing with production-linked royalties, though the company has said revenue synergies from Ansys will not begin until fiscal 2027. The stock trades at approximately 61 times the midpoint of management's fiscal 2027 GAAP EPS guidance, or roughly 28 times adjusted earnings, and carries about $7 billion more debt than cash, largely tied to the Ansys deal.

BlackBerry's analyst price targets have diverged, with one firm raising its fair value estimate from CA$11.96 to CA$12.71 while another cut its target to US$9.50 from US$10.30. Canaccord pointed to QNX as the main pillar of the BlackBerry story, highlighting record Q2 revenue of $80.3M and an 87% gross margin in that segment, and noted that BlackBerry lifted its FY27 QNX revenue guidance to $320M and secured a first Alloy Kore design win that adds more than $100M to the royalty backlog. Despite that strength, Canaccord cut its price target to US$9.50 from US$10.30 and kept a Hold rating, citing continued weakness in Secure Communications. RBC Capital maintained a Sector Perform rating and a US$9 price target, expecting a healthy Q2 update with revenue, EBITDA, and EPS possibly slightly exceeding its own and street estimates, but flagging that sentiment could be sensitive to commentary on the timing of Alloy Kore design wins and progress in physical AI and GEM. The fair value revision also lifted the revenue growth assumption from 9.41% to 9.55%, raised the net profit margin from 18.39% to 21.15%, lowered the future P/E from 43.53x to 37.86x, and edged the discount rate down from 7.83% to 7.81%.

Evercore ISI upgraded Procter & Gamble to Outperform from In Line and raised its price target to $166 from $161, citing improving U.S. execution, stabilizing category volumes, and signs the company's new organization is beginning to deliver. Analyst Robert Ottenstein lifted his fiscal first-quarter organic sales growth estimate to about 3% versus a consensus of 2%, saying the quarter could mark the end of downside risk to P&G's sales, and expects the company to exit fiscal 2027 growing about 4%. Goldman Sachs upgraded Palantir to Buy from Neutral on recent underperformance, with analyst Gabriela Borges saying the stock is setting up for another phase of outperformance into 2027, and set a $230 price target. BNP Paribas downgraded GlobalFoundries to Neutral from Outperform, with analyst Karl Ackerman cutting his price target to $51 from $80 and saying growth drivers are priced in. FBN Securities downgraded SentinelOne to Sector Perform from Outperform on concerns about CrowdStrike encroaching on its business, while BNP Paribas raised its NVIDIA price target to $345 from $285 and its Intel price target to $125 from $75, and Citi lifted its AMD price target to $800 from $575, saying it now sees the CPU market hitting $300 billion by 2030.

Südzucker returned to profit in its second quarter, reporting €28 million in net income compared with a net loss a year earlier, while sales remained largely stable. The earnings release comes as the company's shares have climbed 34.43% year to date, with a 90 day gain of 9.69%, though the one month return fell 4.53%. Analysts hold a consensus price target of €11.98, against a last close of €12.22, with the most bullish target at €15.0 and the most bearish at €9.0. A separate discounted cash flow model estimates a future cash flow value of €35.56, implying the shares trade about 65.6% below that figure.

The US Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Device designation to Natera's multi cancer early detection blood test, a move that reshapes how investors frame the company's diagnostics pipeline. The designation follows a strong run in Natera's share price, with a 30-day return of 21.31%, a 90-day move of 48.44%, a year-to-date gain of 75.10%, and a 1-year total shareholder return of 136.73%. The stock's latest close of $400.71 sits above the most followed fair value estimate of $355.93, which implies the shares are 13% overvalued under a 7.5% discount rate. By contrast, the Simply Wall St discounted cash flow model estimates a future cash flow value of $599.47, suggesting the shares trade about 33% below that level. Natera's investment in new product launches such as Fetal Focus NIPT, Signatera Genome, and AI-based biomarkers, along with its R&D pipeline, positions it to capture growth from long-term trends in personalized medicine and early detection, though tighter reimbursement rules or sustained high R&D spending could pressure profitability.

Yuanta Securities estimates that the airline group's profit in the third quarter of 2026 will fall 68% year on year, but will swing back to a positive 1.7 billion baht from a loss of 560 million baht in the second quarter of 2026, driven by THAI and BA, while AAV's loss narrowed. The fourth quarter of 2026 is a high season, but if oil prices rebound sharply on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it could pressure the group's profitability. The research team expects the group's profit in 2027 to recover year on year, supported by fleet efficiency gains and revenue per passenger that bolster profitability, and sees the airline group's long-term growth led by improved profitability from a tourism structure shifting toward value over volume and more consistent fuel hedging, alongside airport expansion and aviation hub goals. It therefore maintains a neutral weighting on the airline group, recommending a buy on THAI given the continued improvement in operating trends in the second half of 2026 and in 2027, while valuation is attractive on a higher ROE than the group, a strong financial position, and clear long-term growth from aggressive fleet expansion. It also recommends accumulating BA on dips to speculate on third-quarter 2026 earnings, which are expected to recover well quarter on quarter on the arrival of the Samui high season, with an average dividend yield of 6-7% per year expected to help limit downside.

XP Inc. shares climbed 49.86 percent week-on-week to top US market gainers after Senator Flavio Bolsonaro's unexpected win in the first round of Brazil's general elections. Bolsonaro took 47 percent of Sunday's vote and will face leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received 45 percent, in an October 25 runoff, with markets favoring Bolsonaro's more pro-business stance. XP jumped to a fresh four-year high of $32.29 on Friday before closing up 6.67 percent at $32.22. UBS issued a buy recommendation on XP on Thursday with a $37 price target, a 14.8 percent upside from the latest close and a 48 percent increase from its previous $25 fair value assessment. The rally spread to other Brazilian equities including Banco Bradesco, PagSeguro Digital, and StoneCo Ltd. after JPMorgan upgraded Brazilian stocks to overweight, reversing its August downgrade to neutral, citing reduced political uncertainty and potential gains of 12 to 20 percent. XP is expected to report third-quarter results in the week of November 16 to 20, 2026, after second-quarter net income rose 5 percent to R$1.384 billion and net revenues grew 9 percent to R$4.884 billion year-on-year.

TAL Education Group drew fresh investor attention after an upgraded earnings outlook and a top-tier Zacks Rank, supported by favorable forward P/E, PEG, and price-to-book metrics that compare well with peers. The improved outlook fits into an existing investment narrative built around ecosystem expansion, margins, and buybacks, with the key near-term swing factors remaining whether margin gains persist as revenue growth normalizes and how the loss-making learning device segment progresses toward profitability. The most relevant recent development is TAL's extension of its share repurchase authorization through July 2027, alongside almost US$1.2 billion of cumulative buybacks, a program that connects the upgraded outlook to a core catalyst of using excess financial capacity to shrink share count. TAL's narrative projects $5.1 billion revenue and $735.4 million earnings by 2029, requiring 16.5% yearly revenue growth and an earnings decrease of $172.1 million from $907.5 million today, and yields a $16.10 fair value, a 25% upside to its current price. While the consensus view is cautious on earnings, the most optimistic analysts were once modeling revenue of about US$6.3 billion and earnings of roughly US$1.3 billion, and investors should also note that a securities class action and ongoing legal uncertainty could still weigh on TAL's valuation.

InnovestX Securities, or InnovestX, released an analysis recommending a Selective Buy investment strategy on the Domestic Play theme after the SET ended September with a sharp plunge below 1,600 points, hitting a more than three-month low near 1,550 points. It attributed the pressure to three factors: bond yields holding high, pressuring the baht and fund flows, with foreign investors recording continuous net selling in the Thai stock market from September 22 to 29, 2026 totaling almost 20 billion baht; valuations that have begun to look stretched after the index rose about 27% year-to-date in the first nine months of 2026, driven mainly by buying in the energy group, up 38.5% year-to-date, banks, up 32.4% year-to-date, and electronics, up 53.5% year-to-date; and concerns over flooding that could affect asset quality and raise NPL risk. On investment approach, it recommends temporarily avoiding big-cap stocks that have already risen sharply and focusing instead on Domestic Play stocks tied to domestic consumption, namely the commerce group CPALL, CPN and CRC, the healthcare group BCH and PR9, and the communications group TRUE. October will meanwhile mark the start of the full high season for tourism in the fourth quarter of 2026, beginning with Golden Week, when Chinese travelers favor trips to Thailand, combined with tailwinds from Europeans starting their winter getaways and domestic long holidays. There is also upside from global events such as the World Bank-IMF meetings and the Tomorrowland music festival, which will support tourist numbers and tourism revenue accelerating higher. InnovestX assesses that the tourism sector will recover strongly in the fourth quarter of 2026 and carry positive momentum into the first half of 2027, and therefore recommends looking for opportunities to buy for trading gains in stocks that benefit directly from tourism, namely AOT, ERW, CENTEL and MINT, and stocks that benefit indirectly through increased spending, namely CPALL, CRC, CPN, HTC and ICHI.

Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms upgraded their views on Palantir Technologies in early October 2026, citing accelerating demand for sovereign AI, bespoke applications, and its verticalized AI platforms across government and commercial customers. At the same time, Palantir and Armada announced a partnership to deliver sovereign AI on modular data centers manufactured in the U.S. and allied nations, reinforcing Palantir's pitch that customers can keep models, data, and infrastructure entirely within their own security perimeter. Palantir's narrative projects $23.0 billion revenue and $10.2 billion earnings by 2029, requiring 55.2% yearly revenue growth and about a $7.2 billion earnings increase from $3.0 billion today, and yields a $195.57 fair value, a 6% downside to its current price. By contrast, the most bearish analysts assumed revenue of about US$17.9 billion and earnings of roughly US$6.4 billion by 2029, with slower margin expansion and higher competitive pressure potentially muting the impact of deals like the Armada sovereign AI stack.

China Unicom (Hong Kong) is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.4x, well below the telecom sector average of 15.3x and a broader peer group around 20.3x, according to a Simply Wall St valuation review. The stock has gained 84.9% over the past five years but now sits well below recent highs, putting its current earnings multiple in focus. The modelled fair P/E multiple reflecting China Unicom's earnings profile, scale and risk comes out higher than where the shares trade today, indicating the market is pricing the operator at a discount to what that earnings-based framework implies. A top community narrative on the stock argues it is roughly fairly valued, hinging on China Unicom successfully scaling computing power, AI and cloud services while keeping total CapEx near RMB 50 billion. The article is general commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts and is not financial advice.

HORNBACH Holding KGaA reported higher sales and net income for both the second quarter and the first half, while management kept its 2026/27 revenue expectations steady. The reaffirmed guidance came alongside the fresh quarterly results, with the company continuing to target organic growth across Europe, particularly in markets outside Germany. HORNBACH is also investing in Click & Collect and Direct Delivery to link its online and offline channels, which it expects to improve the customer experience and net margins. On the most followed analyst narrative, the shares screen as 16% undervalued against an implied fair value of €99.69, compared with a last close of €83.7. Soft consumer sentiment in HORNBACH's core markets, along with higher wage and store opening costs, could still cap earnings progress.

Cloudflare shares jumped 6% in the afternoon session after the company announced that the Deno team joined its platform to simplify self-hosting Workers and Durable Objects, while Oppenheimer raised its price target on the stock to $430. Cloudflare said in a corporate blog post that the technical combination merges workerd and celld so developers can use identical primitives across multiple hosting environments. Oppenheimer analyst Param Singh officially increased the firm's valuation estimate for the cloud security and performance company. The move came alongside a broad tech sector recovery, with major equity averages moving higher on Friday as dip-buyers dismissed yesterday's OpenAI revenue concerns. Cloudflare is up 84.6% since the beginning of the year and, at $361.88 per share, has set a new 52-week high.

Analysts have lifted the implied fair value of New Era Energy & Digital to about US$11.67 from US$10.50, roughly an 11% increase, as Wall Street weighs progress at the company's Texas Critical Data Centers against sector and regulatory risk. Roth Capital initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a US$10 price target, saying the share price does not fully capture potential commercialization of Texas Critical Data Centers Phases I and II. Northland raised its target to US$12 from US$10 with an Outperform rating, citing progress on the Phase 1 PPA, strong major tenant interest, and management guidance around capacity delivery in 2H27, while B. Riley lifted its target to US$13 from US$10 and kept a Buy rating. B. Riley also noted that the digital mining and HPC peer group has fallen 34% since June 22, compared with 6.2% for the Russell 2000, reflecting regulatory uncertainty, higher yields, and slower leasing activity. The updated model raised the revenue growth assumption to 626.36% from 344.38%, lifted the profit margin forecast to 20.24% from 17.82%, cut the future P/E multiple to 26.88x from 75.20x, and adjusted the discount rate to 7.236% from 7.108%.

Ameriprise Financial's Excess Returns model estimates the company's intrinsic value substantially above its current share price of US$500.51, suggesting the stock may be 42% undervalued despite a new US$5.5 billion share repurchase authorization. The model uses a Book Value of $71.97 per share and a Stable Book Value of $95.98 per share, with a Stable EPS of $51.87 per share, a Cost of Equity of $8.97 per share, and an Excess Return of $42.91 per share. That implies an Average Return on Equity of 54.05%, far above the model's required return. The buyback authorization signals management is prepared to commit significant capital to repurchasing equity. A top community narrative on Simply Wall St values Ameriprise Financial at 14% undervalued, citing a continued shift in its Advice & Wealth Management mix toward durable fee-based earnings.

Nipro's U.S. unit has completed enrollment in the GREAT trial for the Golazo Peripheral Atherectomy System, a clinical milestone the company says could matter for long-term sentiment. The Japanese medical equipment maker's shares trade at ¥1,319, with a one-year total shareholder return down 9.73% after a weaker 90-day share price return of 14.71%, though investors who held through the last three years still see a 30.60% total shareholder return. Nipro trades on a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.6x, below the JP Medical Equipment industry average of 16x, the peer average of 19.4x, and an estimated fair P/E of 18.8x, while recent earnings growth of 144.4% over the past year and higher net profit margins of 2.1% compared to 0.9% last year give context for the mid-teens multiple. The SWS discounted cash flow model, however, sends a different signal, with the share price of ¥1,319 against an estimated future cash flow value of ¥938.68 suggesting the stock screens as overvalued.