Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX, XETRA:NFC) held an analyst briefing this week to make the case that its proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery has a cleaner regulatory path than the competing Paramount Skydance bid, deploying its chief global affairs officer and a senior antitrust lawyer from Skadden to push the argument.
The core pitch framed the Netflix combination as a vertical tie-up between a distributor and a studio, the kind of pairing that has historically cleared regulators with less friction.
Deutsche Bank analyst Liam Fitzpatrick came away from Rio Tinto Ltd (LSE:RIO, ASX:RIO, OTC:RTNTF) full-year results with his 'hold' rating intact and a target price of 6,200p, leaving the stock looking stretched at its current price of 7,108p.
The numbers themselves were broadly in line with expectations. Full-year EBITDA of $25.4 billion nudged fractionally ahead of the $25.2 billion consensus, with copper doing the heavy lifting.
Deutsche Bank analyst Nate Svensson had a 'buy' rating on Klarna Group PLC (Unlisted (US):KLAR) heading into Thursday's results, with a target price of $40. The stock closed at $13.85 after falling 27% on the day.
The headline numbers were not the problem. Gross merchandise volume and revenue both came in slightly ahead of expectations and at the top end of the company's own guidance.
India is hosting a major AI Summit in New Delhi this week, bringing together global technology leaders and policymakers as the country seeks to strengthen its position in the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector, according to a new note from Wedbush analysts.
The conference is expected to feature prominent figures including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Wedbush Securities maintained its 'outperform' rating on Carvana Co. (NYSE:CVNA) but cut its 12-month price target to $425 from $500 following below-par fourth quarter results, which prompted a 9% fall in the shares after hours.
Fourth-quarter revenue of $5.6 billion from the car retailer rose 58% year on year and came in around 7% ahead of consensus expectations.
Shopify Inc (TSX:SH., NYSE:SHOP) delivered strong fourth quarter financial results and provided encouraging guidance for the first quarter of 2026, prompting Jefferies analysts to maintain their ‘Hold’ rating on the stock with a $125 price target.
Shares of Shopify added 9% to trade just shy of this target at about $124 on Wednesday afternoon.
Jefferies analysts have offered a cautiously optimistic take on Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE:PANW, XETRA:5AP)’ fiscal second quarter results, highlighting both near-term challenges from acquisitions and confidence in the company’s longer-term outlook.
The firm noted that while most top-line metrics for F2Q came in modestly above guidance, the performance of the services business was a disappointment.
Wall Street veteran Dan Ives is urging investors to look past the current fears that artificial intelligence could upend the enterprise software and cybersecurity sectors, describing the “AI doomsday” narrative as largely overblown.
“The AI trade has been the ‘fear of the unknown’ for the tech and software sector in particular,” Wedbush’s Ives wrote in a recent commentary. “For the bulls, it’s like fighting a ghost in a dark closet, as the numbers today cannot prove monetization yet for tech players while the cap-ex dollars approach $700 billion this year alone.”
Wedbush argued that the current “AI threat” trade against software and cybersecurity was misplaced and compared it to previous disconnected technology fears that failed to play out.
The broker reiterated 'outperform' ratings across its core large-cap artificial intelligence beneficiaries, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD, XETRA:AMD) with a $290 price target, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) with a $300 price target, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) with a $575 price target, Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD) with a $230 price target, and Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE:PANW, XETRA:5AP) with a $225 price target.
Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA, XETRA:0QF) announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will initiate review of its investigational seasonal influenza vaccine, mRNA-1010, following a Type A meeting between the company and the agency.
Shares of Moderna added 6.5% at about $47 on the update.
Peel Hunt said Pan African Resources PLC (LSE:PAF, OTCQX:PAFRY, JSE:PAN) maiden interim dividend came in “a little better than expected”, even as higher costs at the Barberton complex weighed on first-half EBITDA.
The broker reiterated its 'Buy' rating and 180p target after the gold producer reported US$487m of revenue for the period, broadly in line with Peel Hunt’s model. The pinch point was operating performance: EBITDA of US$245m fell short of Peel Hunt’s US$259m expectation, which the analyst attributed to “higher cash costs, particularly at the Barberton complex”.
UBS raised its 2026 US investment grade issuance forecast to $1.8 trillion from $1.725 trillion and increased its US investment grade technology supply estimate to $360 billion from $300 billion, citing a sharp rise in hyperscaler capital expenditure.
The bank left its US high yield, European investment grade and European high yield forecasts unchanged at $365 billion, $771 billion and $98 billion, respectively, but cut its US leveraged loan projection to $360 billion from $450 billion.
RBC Capital Markets reiterated its 'outperform' rating on Optima Health PLC (AIM:OPT, OTC:OHLTF, FRA:J3N) and maintained its 240p price target following Tuesday’s announcement of a £100m acquisition of People Asset Management Healthcare.
The broker said the deal cemented Optima’s position as the leading standalone UK occupational health provider, with an estimated 15% share in a £1.6bn market.
After Seeing Machines Ltd said first-half revenue is expected to fall 7.5% year on year, broker Stifel said the decline in non-recurring engineering income “doesn't make good headlines” but signals that the “harvest season has arrived”.
Stifel reiterated its 10.5p target price and said investors should “make the most of the current weakness”.
Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB, XETRA:AMC) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ by Bank of America analysts, who also raised their price target on the lithium producer to $190 from $167, citing improving lithium pricing and the company’s ongoing cost initiatives that are expected to drive earnings leverage.
Shares of Albemarle were on track to close Tuesday's session just shy of $170.
Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE:LUV) shares jumped 7% as UBS analysts upgraded the airline to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral,’ citing potential earnings upside from the carrier’s planned seating and fee initiatives.
UBS raised its 12-month price target to $73 from $51, implying roughly 43% upside at their time of writing.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, XETRA:APC) has seen its shares sell off over the past week amid investor concerns over potential delays to its much-anticipated AI features, particularly updates to Siri. Despite the recent volatility,
Wedbush analysts maintained an ‘Outperform’ rating on the stock with a 12-month price target of $350. The stock is down more than 4% in the last five days at about $263.
Analysts from Lucid Capital, H.C. Wainwright, and B. Riley Securities have all repeated ‘Buy’ ratings on OKYO Pharma Ltd (NASDAQ:OKYO), highlighting the company’s promising urcosimod program and its potential to address an unmet need in neuropathic corneal pain (NCP).
The positive sentiment follows a successful Type C meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which confirmed the company’s proposed trial design, primary endpoint, and overall regulatory approach.
Wall Street's current skittishness about software stocks has a blind spot: cybersecurity. While broader tech has sold off, the firms protecting enterprises from digital attacks are seeing pipeline growth that analysts at Wedbush describe as running well above historical norms, and the driver is the same technology rattling investors elsewhere.
AI is simultaneously the threat and the tailwind.
Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius is urging investors to tune out the headline haze, arguing that the market’s recent geopolitical jitters and violent sector rotations have delivered “more noise than (macro) news” - and that the bank’s optimistic 2026 baseline remains “largely unchanged.”
In Hatzius’ framework, the macro mix still looks supportive: global growth should beat consensus as tariff effects fade, fiscal support filters through and financial conditions ease, while inflation drifts closer to target as wage and rent pressures moderate. That combination, he argues, ought to underpin risk assets, though he also warns that high starting valuations cap expected returns and that uncertainty over AI’s winners and losers could keep equity leadership volatile even without a major shock.
UK unemployment has climbed to its highest level in nearly five years, adding to signs that the labour market is losing momentum and increasing pressure on the Bank of England to cut interest rates.
The jobless rate rose to 5.2% in the three months to December, the Office for National Statistics revealed, up from 5.1% and the highest since early 2021. Economists had expected it to hold steady.
As Pantheon Resources PLC kicked off fresh work on its Kodiak discovery, in Alaska, Zeus Capital is describing the newly-commenced seismic reprocessing as the first step towards an appraisal well that could add momentum to the company’s farm-out conversations.
In a note, Zeus highlighted that reprocessing had begun on the northwest part of Kodiak, in an area updip of the Theta West-1 discovery drilled in 2022, with Pantheon targeting an appraisal well, Theta West-2, to help prove up resources. The broker noted Theta West-2 could be drilled in the winter of 2026/27, setting up a runway of potential newsflow first from seismic work and later from the farm-out process.
Panmure Liberum said Helium One Global Ltd latest flow testing at its ITW-1 well in Tanzania has pushed the Rukwa story firmly back into the spotlight, after an Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP) lifted production rates to levels the broker argues could be “commercial” in a broader multi-well development.
In its note, the broker reiterated a 'Buy' rating and held its 3.22p target price, pointing to a test window running from 26 January to 14 February that delivered average flow of around 15 kbwpd and peaks above 16.4 kbwpd.
Optima Health PLC's (AIM:OPT, OTC:OHLTF, FRA:J3N) agreement to buy rival PAM Healthcare for around £100 million has been framed by brokers as a defensive land grab that accelerates the company towards its ambition to dominate the UK outsourced occupational health market.
Cavendish said the acquisition, Optima’s largest since its September 2024 flotation, would lift the enlarged group to about 15% pro forma market share.