These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron's, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts' thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron's. Some of the reports' issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.

Microsoft -- MSFT-Nasdaq Buy -- $535.64 on Aug. 5 by D.A. Davidson OpenAI just released its latest model, GPT-OSS, marking the lab's first open-source release since GPT-2 in February 2019. In conjunction with our initial thoughts on both GPT-OSS models, we remind investors about the outsize benefit that Microsoft gains in having a tight commercial relationship with OpenAI. That partnership is driving significant gains throughout the business....Microsoft's agreement terms with OpenAI, which grants it right of first refusal on either training or inference, we believe is a notable driver of the recent outperformance by Azure over its hyperscaler peers.

Additionally...we saw material acceleration of Azure OpenAI Services in fiscal fourth-quarter 2025, which is uplifting other artificial-intelligences services and core hyperscaler services on Azure, both of which are growing faster than comparable product sets on either Google Cloud Platform or Amazon Web Services. Price target: $650.

Globe Life -- GL-NYSE Overweight -- $139.34 on Aug. 4 by Morgan Stanley With the Department of Justice investigations [on sales practices] concluded, our thesis shifts toward capital and earnings growth. The capital outlook is improving, thanks in part to Bermuda developments: Management expects to officially establish the Bermuda reinsurance entity and execute its first transaction -- reinsuring life reserves -- by the end of 2025. Globe Life's earnings profile appears promising, given a stabilized Health segment and supportive Life segment.

We are upgrading Globe Life to Overweight from Equal Weight, and increasing our price target to $166 from $135.

Planet Fitness -- PLNT-NYSE Buy -- $103.14 on Aug. 6 by StifelPlanet Fitness reported solid second-quarter 2025 results, with comps well above the Street mean at 8.2%, solid membership growth, and adjusted Ebitda nearly $7 million above projections. The company narrowed its full-year comp guidance to the higher end of its previous range (to about 6% from 5% to 6%), implying comps of roughly 5% in second-half 2025, which we view as conservative. We believe the stock is down due to management's comments that the click-to-cancel attrition rate was slightly higher than expected.

However, the somewhat higher rate, which has been improving sequentially, is reflected in Planet Fitness' guidance, so we view the stock's reaction as overblown. We believe this presents a buying opportunity, as we anticipate that the ongoing benefit of Classic pricing, the coming Black Card price increase, and more effective marketing and brand positioning will fuel better-than-expected, durable comp growth. Price target: $120.

Palantir Technologies -- PLTR-Nasdaq Hold -- $160.66 on Aug. 4 by Deutsche Bank Palantir delivered another impressive result, with accelerating revenue growth, net dollar retention, [rising] backlog, and margin expansion off an already high base. Top-line outperformance of 7.2% in the quarter was well above the historical average closer to 3%, with about 60% of the upside coming from Government...and about 40% from U.S. Commercial that grew 93% year over year, while International Commercial (-3% Y/Y) remains more muted.

Bookings were equally as strong, with record annual contract value of $0.7 billion and total contract value of $2.3 billion (+140% Y/Y) pushing total remaining deal value to +65% Y/Y from +45% prior. On the back of these results, management lifted full-year guidance for revenue and non-GAAP operating income by 6% and 12%, respectively. Price target: $160.

Novo Nordisk -- NVO-NYSE Neutral -- $48.81 on Aug. 4 by UBS The equity story for Novo Nordisk is very challenging.... 1) Following expert channel checks, we expect GLP-1 compounders to remain in the U.S., which limits cash-pay uptake and leaves an uncertain outlook for U.S. Wegovy. 2) Beyond compounding, the lack of commercial execution (losing share to Eli Lilly) and lack of uptake in insured channels leaves sales growth slowing to just 6% in the second half from 18% in the first half. We do not see what catalyzes growth despite the theoretically very sizable unmet need in obesity. 3) Ozempic appears to have plateaued early despite strong brand awareness, which indicates a much stronger reception to Mounjaro from doctors, in our view. 4) President Trump's proposal to reimburse GLP-1 obesity in Medicare could add significant volume uplift, but most favored nations demands to offer U.S. cash sales at European prices could significantly reduce value.

We are lowering our price target to $53.

Shopify -- SHOP-NYSE Buy -- $152.90 on Aug. 6 by Seaport Research Partners A clean beat across the board by Shopify in the second quarter. Gross merchandise volume of $88 billion was +31%, helped by strong results internationally (+42%), particularly in Europe. Revenue of $2.7 billion was also +31%, with Merchant Solutions' growth looking particularly strong (+37%). Third-quarter guidance looks positive: Notably, Shopify expects revenue growth to be in the mid-to-high 20% range, which is above our/Street [projections].

The stock is reacting positively, and coming out of earnings, we're taking our numbers and price target up to $167 (based on 80 times 2026 enterprise value to Ebitda), given the strong operating momentum being exhibited right now by Shopify.

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August 08, 2025 15:59 ET (19:59 GMT)

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