UBER UPGRADED ON 'AGILE' MODEL: Daiwa analyst Jairam Nathan upgraded Uber (UBER) to Outperform from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $34. With a "global and diversified portfolio," along with a "strong" market position, Uber is better positioned to take on near-term headwinds and capitalize on the structural trends towards ridesharing and delivery, Nathan tells investors in a research note. While rides volume and regulations are near-term headwinds, Uber is "agile enough to flex their business model to the changing scenario," says the analyst. As such, Nathan believes Uber "will be able to arrive at a workable solution longer term" in California.

ESTEE LAUDER UPGRADES: Morgan Stanley analyst Dara Mohsenian upgraded Estee Lauder (EL) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $233, up from $196, following the company's quarterly results. Mohsenian sees key value drivers as still intact long-term post-COVID, particularly skincare momentum and a shift to ecommerce, and more COVID-challenged areas as likely to recover. The analyst adds that Estee Lauder's 2H21 EPS guidance and long-term margin guidance from the Q4 earnings call provided more visibility.

DA Davidson analyst Linda Bolton Weiser also upgraded Estee Lauder to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $231, up from $183. The analyst notes that while the company reported a "worse than feared" Q4 earnings loss and the stock fell 6.7% yesterday, she is raising her modeled expected forward earnings multiple to 39-times from 33-times as Estee Lauder's performance is "projected to improve" from here. Bolton Weiser further cites the company's China markets being in "full recovery, travel retail declines slowing to 30%, and noting that its sales in July grew on an annual basis, making Estee Lauder's Q1 guidance likely "conservative."

WORKDAY STARTED AT SELL: Loop Capital analyst Yun Kim initiated coverage of Workday (WDAY) with a Sell rating and $140 price target. The analyst is cautious about the company's current growth trajectory, noting it is dependent on the successful execution of "multiple growth vectors" while sustaining its core human capital management business. Channel checks indicate that many large organizations were already scaling back plans for large scale business application deployment, including Workday, starting this year prior to COVID, Kim tells investors in a research note. Further, checks show Workday's large-scale HCM business is currently under pressure and will likely remain weak well into next year, as many large organizations are focused on other higher priority initiatives such as cloud migration and cloud-based security deployments, says the analyst. As such, Kim believes the company's overall growth could lag the industry and its peers when the IT spending rebounds.

ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER DOUBLE DOWNGRADED: BofA analyst Joshua Shanker double downgraded Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) to Underperform from Buy with a price target of $101, down from $117. The analyst is modeling downside for revenue in the near term due to recessionary pressures while noting that a "material" tax increase in 2022 will slow the company's GAAP earnings growth. The announcement of a "restructuring program" and investor focus on "cost saves" poses the "biggest risk" to his rating, Shanker tells investors in a research note.

ALIBABA RESULTS 'SOLID ACROSS THE BOARD': Baird analyst Colin Sebastian keeps his Outperform rating and $275 price target on Alibaba (BABA) after its Q1 earnings beat. The analyst notes that the quarter's performance highlighted that the company's pandemic-related "storm clouds have largely passed" and sees Alibaba with "strong position" to benefit from accelerating digital services adoption rates in commerce, cloud, communications, and media in China. Mizuho analyst James Lee raised the firm's price target on Alibaba Group Holding to $300 from $290 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The company's fiscal Q1 results were better than expected across the board, indicating strong demand for essentials and recovery in discretionary categories, operating synergies across its segments and a disciplined approach in lower-tier markets, Lee tells investors in a research note.

Benchmark analyst Fawne Jiang raised the firm's price target on Alibaba to $290 from $275 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. Jiang is encouraged by the faster-than-expected recovery of the core ecommerce marketplace business, and expects the positive near-term outlook to be driven by continued new user acquisition, especially from less developed regions, ongoing enhancement of the user experience through category expansion and new content ecommerce formats, and increasing monetization from feed recommendations and live streaming.

Analysts at KeyBanc, BofA and Truist also raised their respective price targets for Alibaba shares after the Q1 report.