Citizens Financial, Six Flags, Mattel: Trending Tickers

Citigroup analysts upgraded Citizen’s Financial (CFG) to Buy. B. Riley downgrades Six Flags (SIX) to Neutral following a possible merger between the company and Cedar Fair (FUN). Lastly, toymaker Mattel (MAT) has been downgraded to Neutral by JPMorgan, with analysts stating that the “Barbie Boom" did not last as long as expected.

Yahoo Finance's Seana Smith and Brad Smith examine these stocks.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Eyek Ntekim

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Stocks slightly lower, after comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled rate cuts not coming in March. Here you're taking a look at the S&P 500, down by about a quarter of a percent here this morning.

SEANA SMITH: Shares of Citizen Financial are relatively flat this morning, after Citigroup upgraded the stock to buy from neutral. Now the analysts they're telling investors to play offense rather than defense in the current environment for banks, explaining that the best time to own bank stocks is when valuations go from late cycle to early cycle multiples. But again, stock though, still down off about 3/10 of a percent.

BRAD SMITH: And B. Riley downgrading shares of Six Flags from buy to neutral. Analyst Eric Wold seeing the merger between Six Flags and Cedar Fair as a better play for Cedar Fair regardless of the outcome. The analysts explaining that it does not matter if the deal goes through or not, Cedar Fair will come out as a winner.

SEANA SMITH: And it turns out Barbie might not have been enough for Mattel. JP Morgan downgrading shares to neutral from overweight, citing a smaller tailwind from the Barbie movie than initially anticipated. Now, the analysts there explaining that the duration of the Barbie boom was, quote, "Unexpectedly short and creating significant wall of worry for investors.

Now, the analyst also listing weak holiday sales, a shorter holiday season, and unexpected freight costs, as other reasons for caution surrounding the stock. You're looking at pressure of just about 3.5%. But again, this report is really going to give us a solid reading on the consumer, what demand looks like during, or looked like during that critical holiday season, and that's what they were pointing to here in this call from JP Morgan. Just the fact that, hey, maybe it didn't live up to those expectations and we could see further pressure on the stock here later this week.

BRAD SMITH: I respectfully disagree with this call and here's why. At the end of the day, you had so many people buying Barbie core or buying Barbie products, buying Barbie everything, ahead of the movie, a year before it even came out. Before we even got--

SEANA SMITH: It was already priced in.

BRAD SMITH: Whole trailer. Yes, so already priced in, at the end of the day. And so for us to expect it to just continue to be this ultimate every year people should just keep buying in to Barbie, there is normalization that would happen afterwards, and we should have expected that. And at the end of the day, we'll see how many people keep wearing pink everywhere. Look, I got some pink socks even in the craze, and dressed up to go to the movie. But at the same time, I'm not going to be drinking rosé the same amount that I was leading up to this movie.

SEANA SMITH: Did you dress up as Ken to go to the movie?

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a, like a Tyler Perry, Ken.

SEANA SMITH: How did I not know this? Well, I wish we had the picture ready for this segment, because that would have really made it. But again, well, that points to the fact that it really did start this whole revolution. When you talk about what this would mean for Mattel stock going forward, it's what they're going to do with their other IPOs that they have--

BRAD SMITH: Right.

SEANA SMITH: Exactly.

BRAD SMITH: Hot Wheels, right?

SEANA SMITH: Exactly. That's one of the movies that they will be making here in the future. So if whether or not it's going to spark any excitement that was similar to what we saw play out with Barbie.

BRAD SMITH: We'll be right, we'll be buying race cars leading up to that. People are not going to get dressed up as a, as a toy race car to go see a movie. But hey, you might wear some race car colors, who knows.

SEANA SMITH: You never know.

SEANA SMITH: We'll see. We'll see what happens. We'll workshop it out there.