Edited by

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.

Worthington Enterprises -- WOR-NYSE Buy -- $51.40 on Sept. 24 by Seaport Research Partners The tone of Worthington Enterprises' management team on its recent first-quarter conference call was very good, as the team gets strong double-digit Ebitda growth from "stable" end markets. Future lower interest rates could help the U.S. consumer and also help some larger projects get started.

While the market stability continues into second-quarter 2026, the teams are focused on controlling what they can, like new-product innovation, serving customers, becoming more efficient in their factories, modernizing the factory machinery, working on lowering overhead costs, doing strategic mergers-and-acquisitions deals, and doing more operational excellence programs....The first-quarter 2026 strength in the Building Products segment resulted in total Ebitda growth of about 35% year over year....

We believe that Worthington is focusing its products and customer experiences to better serve the market, and therefore could be gaining market share. Price target: $74.

Micron Technology -- MU-Nasdaq Positive -- $166.41 on Sept. 24 by Susquehanna Micron Technology reported that revenue/earnings-per-share results and guidance were both above consensus. Specifically, the EPS guide of $3.75 significantly exceeded Susquehanna/consensus of $3.01/$3.08, thanks to better pricing, mix, and cost reduction. The product mix is increasingly shifting toward higher-value products while bit supply remains disciplined. In fact, high-bandwidth memory, high-capacity dual in-line memory modules, and low power server dynamic random-access memory represented $10 billion of revenue, up five times and has continued to grow rapidly in the mix.

We see the tight supply environment, highlighted by Micron, supporting NAND and DRAM pricing, up double digits, respectively, in fiscal fourth-quarter 2025, a trend that, according to the entire Memory supply chain, can sustain at least through first-half 2026. These factors support a quarterly EPS opportunity of $5 by late 2026 to early 2027. Price target $200.

MillerKnoll -- MLKN-Nasdaq Hold -- $19.02 on Sept. 24 by Benchmark Research MillerKnoll reported solid first-quarter 2026 results recently with revenue, Ebitda, and EPS coming in well ahead of Street estimates. Sales growth in all three segments paved the way to greater fixed-cost leverage during the quarter, as evidence of volume leverage in both North America/International Contract segments more than overcame the company's investments in Retail expansion. Management's second-quarter 2026 guidance fell in line with consensus as volatility in order patterns show signs of normalizing after recent tariff/comp-driven turbulence.

We are maintaining our fiscal 2025 and 2026 EPS estimates steady at $1.75 and $2, respectively, as well as our Hold rating, although we see a path to upside from volume growth above our modest forecast as the year progresses.

Vertiv Holdings -- VRT-NYSE Outperform -- $151.96 on Sept. 23 by Evercore ISI Microsoft recently announced a new microfluidic cooling system that removes heat up to three times more effectively than cold plates. Unlike traditional cold plates, which circulate coolant above the chip package, this solution etches tiny microchannels directly into the silicon, so coolant flows inside the chip itself.....This announcement only reinforces the growing adoption of liquid cooling technologies, whether cold plates or microfluidics, and highlights the importance of a systems-level approach that integrates silicon, coolant, servers, and data center design (Vertiv's core strength).

While hyperscalers like Microsoft (and Amazon Web Services, in its July announcement) increasingly seek to own their intellectual property, we think that Vertiv remains a crucial partner in developing, supplying, and deploying these solutions at scale. Price target/base case: $165.

AutoZone -- AZO-NYSE Buy -- $4,121 on Sept. 23 by TD Cowen Fourth-quarter 2025 EPS of $48.71 missed Street estimates primarily on margins, with higher last in, first out, or LIFO, the key culprit. Top line was strong with domestic comps +4.8% on do-it-for-me, or DIFM, estimate +10.6% as inflation pushes through and AutoZone takes share. That said, LIFO at $80 million came in ahead of our more cautious estimate and pushed Ebit margin down to 19.2%, with LIFO likely picking up further into fiscal 2026. Price target: $4,900.

Procore Technologies -- PCOR-Nasdaq Perform -- $71.31 by Oppenheimer We view the appointment of Dr. Ajei Gopal as CEO as a positive development for Procore....Gopal brings a wealth of experience, most recently at engineering simulation firm Ansys, and is particularly well suited to lead Procore during its go-to-market transition, having overseen a similar transition at Ansys. Early investor feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, given his familiarity within industrial software circles. A minor area of pushback we received is that Ansys' growth was partially fueled by M&A, which isn't likely to be as well received by Procore investors....Management reiterated its fiscal third-quarter and full-year outlook.

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September 26, 2025 19:32 ET (23:32 GMT)

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