Last week, many Wall Street analysts became more bullish ahead of three stocks’ quarterly earnings reports. U.S.-listed stocks include Meta Platforms, Asian e-commerce giant Sea Ltd and miner Barrick Gold. CNBC Pro screened the MSCI World Index stocks for which Wall Street analysts have raised their price targets in the past seven days. The stocks will also report quarterly financial results in the coming weeks. Meta Platforms Over the past seven days, 12 equity research analysts have raised their price targets on the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The median price target on the stock from 70 analysts suggests upside potential of just 4%, although that’s largely thanks to the stock’s 64% gain this year. However, one of the most bullish analysts, Jeffrey Wlodarczak of Pivotal Research Group, has a $780 price target on the stock, predicting a 35% upside over the next 12 months. Wlodarczak believes that in addition to increasing sales and revenue, Meta will report cost efficiencies brought about by artificial intelligence in the coming months. Meta Platforms is one of the companies leading the artificial intelligence trend this year, releasing Llama 3, a sophisticated chatbot model, in April. “In an ever-changing world driven by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, we feel comfortable in Zuckerberg’s ability to successfully guide META to victory,” Wlodarczak said in an Oct. 1 note to clients. META 1Y Series Sea Ten Analyst Ben Zhou said he raised his target price on shares of Singapore-based Sea Limited, which owns Asian e-commerce platform Shopee, fintech company Garena and game developer Garena. However, analysts’ median price target leaves no room for upside, meaning the NYSE-listed stock is fairly valued after rising 144.35% this year. Despite raising the price target, analysts at Phillip Capital still have a “neutral” rating on the stock. They said the company has great long-term prospects if it can handle the short-term pressures of fierce competition. “The company’s three-sided growth in SeaMoney, Shopee and Garena shows the potential to deliver long-term growth returns. However, short-term growth still faces competitive challenges as SE currently needs to maintain higher sales and marketing expenses to remain profitable. Ten analysts on SE 1Y Barrick Gold also raised their bets on the Canadian-listed mining giant, with a median price target of 18, said Li Capital analyst Helena Wang in a note to clients. % upside potential. Analysts were generally disappointed with the company’s pre-release earnings last week, suggesting the company may struggle to meet sales and cost expectations for the rest of the year. The company’s shares are tied to the price of gold, which is linked to the price of copper. To a lesser degree. Gold 1Y line.
