Here are Thursday's biggest analyst calls of the day: Pinterest, Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond & more

Published Thu, Oct 29 20208:15 AM EDT

Key Points

Telsey upgraded Bed Bath & Beyond to outperform from market perform.
JPMorgan upgraded Pinterest to overweight from neutral.
R-5 Capital upgraded Best Buy to hold from sell.
Oppenheimer upgraded Blackstone to outperform from perform.
MKM upgraded Pinterest to buy from hold.
Argus named General Electric a deep value idea.

(This story is for CNBC PRO subscribers only.) Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday: Telsey upgraded Bed Bath & Beyond to outperform from market perform Telsey upgraded the retail chain store after its investor day and said the company is executing well enough that it sees a "smaller" and "more profitable" company by 2023. "We came away from the investor day with confidence that Bed Bath & Beyond' s new management team has developed a sound stategy to address issues that have resulted in market share losses and decreased profitability in recent years. The planned changes—which target merchandising, pricing, stores, supply chain, digital, and technology—should result in a smaller, but more profitable Bed Bath & Beyond by 2023." JPMorgan upgraded Pinterest to overweight from neutral JPMorgan upgraded the social media company after its strong earnings report and said it expects the company to strengthen largely due to its "early-stage ad platform." "Our upgrade to OW comes late, but we also believe there is much room ahead as PINS continues to strengthen its early-stage ad platform & builds out the advertiser base. While PINS has long had a user base w/high commercial intent, we are now getting a glimpse of what monetization & profit can look like." R-5 Capital upgraded Best Buy to hold from sell R-5 Capital upgraded the big box retailer and said it underestimated the impact of the pandemic on consumer behavior. "Updating numbers ahead of the 3Q earnings report and moving our rating to Hold. With the environment remaining similar to when BBY provided its business update in August, indicating same store sales were running up 20%, prudence dictates that we move our Sell rating to Hold. In retrospect, we clearly underestimated the duration of pandemics' impact on consumer behavior outside of the Food at Home channel." Oppenheimer upgraded Blackstone to outperform from perform Oppenheimer upgraded the private equity and asset manager after its earnings report and said the company is "performing well" and doing "interesting things." "We've been covering the private equity based alternative asset managers for more than a decade now, and we've always said that the earnings themselves are in most ways the least interesting thing in the earnings release and call. It's all about investment performance, fundraising, where they are deploying capital and where they are harvesting it that's interesting and BX is performing well and doing interesting things on all fronts." MKM upgraded Pinterest to buy from hold MKM upgraded the stock after its robust earnings report on Wednesday and said it sees several upside catalysts for the company heading into 2021. "We believe the pandemic has led to a fundamental change in the way consumers shop online and how social media can play a bigger role in shopping going forward. And, we believe that the recently observed post-pandemic trends at Pinterest are just the beginning of a long-term virtuous cycle between user growth, user engagement, advertiser demand, and monetization." Argus named General Electric a deep value idea Argus called the multinational conglomerate a deep value idea and said the company should see "higher earnings and multiples" under its new CEO. "Down the road, we think that GE 's earnings power could be as high as $1.50 per share (implying an operating margin near the industry average of 15%). If we apply an industry-average multiple to this estimate, the valuation is close to $25 per share. That's a long way off. In the meantime, we think that GE's progress under its new CEO will lead to higher earnings and higher multiples."