First Solar edges out peers; Chevron upped to Overweight: 4 big analyst picks

Investing.com -- Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest analyst picks you may have missed since yesterday: upgrades at Chevron, Dynatrace, Clorox, and First Solar.

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Chevron upped to Outperform at Exane BNP Paribas

Chevron (NYSE:CVX) was upgraded at Exane BNP Paribas to Outperform from Neutral, as reported in real time on InvestingPro.

The move follows Exxon Mobil 's (NYSE:XOM) massive $60 billion acquisition deal of Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD) on Wednesday, after which speculation grew regarding Chevron's potential countermove.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal hinted at Chevron's possible interest in Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), although that speculation has since "fizzled, and some analysts are now considering whether Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES) might be on Chevron's radar.

Chevron is set to announce its Q3/23 earnings on Oct 27.

Shares were up 0.5% to $161.91.

First Solar upped to Overweight at Barclays

First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) was upgraded by Barclays Overweight from Equalweight with a price target of $224.00 (from $230.00).

The analysts said that, against the backdrop of significant investor concern "about the implications for utility-scale growth in the 2024+ timeframe" - including the recent disappointing update at peer NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) Partners - "we think FSLR’s domestic content advantages and contracted backlog that extends out through the end of the decade provides it with better visibility than peers."

They added that, despite that advantage, "the valuation gap between FSLR and its peers has widened. ...At this juncture we think the gap is too large."

Shares gained in the premarket, but were recently ticking down 0.5% to $150.72 in the regular session.

Dynatrace gains on DA Davidson upgrade

Dynatrace (NYSE:DT) shares were on the rise after DA Davidson upgraded the company to Buy from Neutral and raised its price target to $65.00 from $50.00, noting that the company is well positioned to benefit from a number of key drivers.

First, the analysts noted that Dynatrace has experienced a notable uptick in developer activity in recent quarters, hinting at increased demand for their offerings. Second, the company is poised to gain from the Convergence trend in Observability, and with the potential disruptions to Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) due to its forthcoming acquisition by Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Dynatrace could capture a market share.

Third, the analysts highlighted Dynatrace's proactive engagement with OpenTelemetry, which has outpaced competitors like Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG) and Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) in contributions over the past year. “We believe that vendors who embrace OpenTelemetry can extend their solutions in ways that enhance the value proposition for customers and capture greater market share moving forward,” mentioned DA Davidson.

Furthermore, with a strong enterprise-centric customer base, the analysts believe Dynatrace is well-positioned to leverage the advancements in AI.

Shares were recently up 0.7% to $48.53.

Clorox sheds underperform rating

Bernstein upgraded Clorox (NYSE:CLX) to Market Perform from Underperform with a price target of $120.00.

Shares took a big hit in the past month or so after a major cyberattack hit the company and management forecast a big resulting loss. Clorox is expected to report fiscal Q1 earnings on November 1, with analysts expecting a loss of $0.21 per share vs. last year's $0.20 profit.

Despite the upgrade, shares were losing 1.8% to $120.22 in recent trading.

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