Notable analyst calls this week: Disney, Meta and Apple among top picks

The S&P500 (SP500) closed in the green, after the week saw stronger-than-expected jobs report and U.S. President Donald Trump reaching a trade deal with Vietnam.

For this holiday-shortened week, Nasdaq (COMP:IND) rose 1.1%, while Dow (DJI) advanced 1.6%.

Wall Street had a slew of upgrades and downgrades from analysts. Here are some of the major calls for the week:

Disney gets bullish rating from Jefferies

Jefferies upgraded media and entertainment giant Disney (NYSE:DIS) to Buy from Hold and hiked PT to $144, up from $100.

In 2026, Jefferies expects the Experiences unit to be well-positioned, while expecting DTC margins to drive operating income growth. The brokerage said Disney’s positive comments on Disney World bookings have reduced slowdown risks for FY25 in the P&E unit.

Jefferies also said the company has content and sports on the right path for the next six months with the new season of The Bear and films like Fantastic Four, Zootopia 2, and Avatar 3, along with ESPN DTC launching this fall.

Needham drops bullish view on Meta

Needham downgraded Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) to Hold from Underperform, saying that the social media and tech giant’s capital budgets continue to rise.

Analyst Laura Martin thinks the rating reflects Meta’s slowing labor productivity improvement, driven by rising headcount and higher costs per FTE, which she believes works against share price appreciation.

The brokerage also sees a structural cost disadvantage against rivals like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, who own their cloud assets, and regulatory risks related to privacy, antitrust, and content moderation, among other reasons.

“We estimate that META’s CapX will be $68B in FY25, up 84% y/y, the fastest growth among the hyperscalers,” the research firm said.

Apple upgraded on surprise iPhone growth potential during Q3

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was upgraded to Hold from Underperform by Jefferies due in part to the possibility of a surprise growth in global iPhone sale during the third quarter of fiscal 2025.

Jefferies, which also hiked its PT to $188.32 from $170.62, increased its third quarter iPhone sales estimate to 49.4M, which implies year-over-year growth of 9%, compared to its prior forecast expecting 1% growth.

However, the investment bank expects iPhone sales to slow during the second half of calendar year 2025 and points to potential downside in the ever-important services revenue segment.

“Given the sales strength in the Jun Q, we expect demand in the Sep Q to suffer,” said Jefferies analyst Edison Lee, adding that the brokerage cut its Sep Q iPhone units by 11% to 46.3m, down 6% YoY.

BMO raised PT on Canadian telecom Rogers Communications (NYSE:RCI) to C$57, upped from C$55. Analyst Tim Casey made a case for the PT hike upon observing that the wireless pricing environment “appears to be improving (becoming less negative) with operators raising prices in April and largely maintaining those levels through the quarter.”

Analysts at Bank of America hiked their PT on Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) to $110, up from $100, and reiterated their bullish rating, citing improving macroeconomic sentiment and viewing its recently announced Amazon partnership as favorable. BofA raised its 2025 revenue forecast for Roku to $4.59B, from $4.55B. It also upped its FY EBITDA forecast to $360M from a prior guide of $351M.