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.
Braze -- BRZE-Nasdaq Outperform -- $30.31 on Sept. 9 by Oppenheimer We maintain our Outperform rating on Braze after good fiscal second-quarter results. While the margin story is now a positive, the acceleration narrative weakened. Additionally, outsize growth in services revenue in fiscal 2027, combined with fears that artificial-intelligence spending will crowd out second-half software spending, raise concerns on subscription growth durability.
However, sales productivity, pipeline trends, and profitability measures turned up this quarter. Gross margin improved even as services scaled. In our view, these developments suggest that Braze's growth can reaccelerate post its customer conference in this fiscal third quarter, and that the AI ramp is not structurally margin-dilutive. Negatively, backlog growth decelerated and missed expectations.
Further, the near-term revenue growth and profit guides step down after lapping the OfferFit acquisition and as services capacity builds for the Decisioning Studio pipeline, leaving tough optics. Target price: $26.
IonQ -- IONQ-NYSE Buy -- $40.47 on Sept. 9 by Needham We attended IonQ's recent 2026 analyst day at the New York Stock Exchange. Our takeaways include: 1) The company raised its fiscal-year 2026 revenue outlook to $450 million to 460 million (from $280 million to 290 million), reflecting $170 million of net revenue from the SkyWater acquisition; 2) it unveiled Superion 256, its sixth-generation platform and the foundation for all future compute products. Superion 256 will be IonQ's first system to use Oxford Ionic's electronic qubit control, or EQC, with quantum processing units, or QPUs, manufactured at SkyWater; 3) the SkyWater integration continues to progress as cycle times have declined to two months (from nine), resulting in a 330 times reduction in cost per qubit. Notably, IonQ has been able to produce more trapped ion QPUs in the past six months than in the entirety of its history; and 4) quantum security momentum is increasing as the industry approaches Q-Day [the future moment when quantum computers become powerful enough to break standard public-key encryption].
Our target price remains $65, based on our discounted-cash-flow valuation model.
Intuit -- INTU-Nasdaq Positive -- $318.93 on Sept. 9 by Susquehanna Intuit provides useful customer metrics, but investors would benefit from consistent, plain-spoken disclosures of absolute customer additions, retention, and the contribution of customers new to the franchise versus upgrades and migrations. We would especially welcome product-level revenue and operating key performance indicators within Online Services, including Payments, Bill Pay, and Capital.
Existing volume metrics and revenue-growth bridges provide partial visibility, but leave Bill Pay's scale and monetization difficult to assess. Given Money's importance to Intuit's growth strategy, greater detail would help distinguish adoption, pricing, and mix.
On the fourth-quarter 2026 earnings call, CEO Sasan Goodarzi emphasized two priorities: acquiring new customers to gain market share and increasing platform-services adoption to drive higher average revenue per customer. Given the stock underperformance, clearer quarterly measures of progress would help investors know how they're doing and support our Positive rating and $415 price target.
GE Aerospace -- GE-NYSE Buy -- $334.91 on Sept. 9 by Seaport Research Partners GE Aerospace intends to acquire Consolidated Precision Products for $11.75 billion; $7 billion in cash and $5 billion in new debt. While we think 26 times estimated 2027 Ebitda ex-synergies may be a bit expensive, the deal is a long-term positive for GE. We see a high likelihood that the deal will go through, and if there are any objections by CPP customers, we think GE will probably address those concerns.
In Aerospace & Defense, we think vertical integration allows for more efficient capacity expansion, better execution, and improved margins (given price controls, overhead elimination, operating efficiencies, etc.). Target price: $375.
Robinhood Markets -- HOOD-Nasdaq Buy -- $119.10 on Sept. 8 by StoneX Equity Research We are initiating coverage of Robinhood Markets with a Buy rating and $170 price target. Robinhood is a mobile-first retail financial platform serving 28.4 million funded customers that has expanded well beyond commission-free equity trading into crypto, options, prediction markets, net interest income, subscriptions, banking, and advisory, and that is now moving up the stack into market infrastructure that it owns outright through Rothera and Robinhood Chain. The company has been buying its way into exchange and blockchain infrastructure at software margins.
ServiceTitan -- TTAN-Nasdaq Buy -- $67.12 on Sept. 8 by BTIG Research & Strategy Despite second-quarter noise, ServiceTitan is doubling down on its early success with its AI and agentic offerings, and while this is resulting in revenue shifting into outer quarters, it creates a compelling buying opportunity, especially as "SaaSpocalypse" fears creep back into the broader software tape. Price target: $110.
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