Investing.com - Facebook and Apple led FAANG stocks higher on Monday, boosting the broader tech sector after Wall Street analysts upgraded their outlooks on both companies.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) upgraded its rating on Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to buy from neutral and raised its price target on the stock to $210 from $180, arguing expectations for a decline in tech giant's hardware sales are somewhat overly negative. Apple's share price rose 3.3%.
The bank's price target on Apple's stock assumes flat hardware and somewhat-slower-than-historical growth in services. Bank of America said the 26% pullback seen in Apple's stock price from its peak "presents opportunity" and highlighted several supportive factors for its bullish outlook including a "large reversal of inventory overhang" for iPhones, stability in the group's global supply chain and "modest" acceleration in services revenue growth.
Shares of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) rose 2% after Nomura Instinet upgraded its rating on the social media stock to buy from neutral and raised its price target to $215 from $172.
The firm said its concerns over engagement trends at core Facebook have "eased," as users were transitioning to the company’s Stories feature faster than it had anticipated.
Instagram Stories produced about $750 million in advertising revenue in 2018 and could pave the way to grow to $2.2 billion this year and $7.5 billion by 2021, Nomura said.
The stock has gained more than 40% following a plunge in December, though it remains about 21% below record levels seen in July.
Other FAANG stocks Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) gained more than 2% on the day.