Salesforce and Walmart Upgrades Lead as Barclays Cuts Five Tech Ratings

Bank of America and Deutsche Bank upgraded Salesforce and Walmart, while Barclays cut ratings on five technology companies as analysts assessed AI growth prospects and consumers’ response to inflation.

Bank of America expects broader AI adoption to deepen customer reliance on Salesforce’s platforms, accelerate revenue and ease concerns that AI could disrupt the company. The upgrade came with a higher price target. TokenPost’s earlier coverage of Salesforce’s rating change detailed the Oct. 12 move to Buy from Underperform and the target increase to $285 from $160.

Deutsche Bank sees persistent inflation making Walmart more attractive to shoppers focused on price. The bank expects that appeal to support market-share gains and help margins.

Barclays lowered ratings on Dell, HPE and NetApp, seeing little near-term contribution from AI for hardware companies. It also downgraded HubSpot and monday.com, citing high valuations, a lack of a clear growth pickup and slower conversion of AI products into revenue.

Lockheed Martin also drew analyst support in the same round of calls.