According to JPMorgan, slowing demand for hard seltzer opens the door for beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev. Analyst Jared Dinges, who has doubled the brewer’s stock from underweight to overweight, says the stock is trading at a 23% discount to the broader sector and should benefit. from improving demand for domestic light beer in the United States. “After more than a decade of minimal organic volume growth, ABI is transitioning to a higher quality top revenue growth story, while indicating the company is working effectively to reduce balance sheet risk while “rapidly reducing leverage” over the next two years. could position the company to buy back 10% of the shares owned by Altria. Dinges said demand for domestic light beer – Anheuser-Busch’s “bread and butter” – and a decline in demand for hard beer in the US should bode well for the company going forward, too. “It is generally believed that Hard Seltzer sales are mainly replaced by [ready-to-drink beverages]however, we believe a bigger benefactor from the seltzer slowdown is domestic light beer – domestic light beer has improved its market share trajectory by 120 basis points in 2022 alone.” Dinges also sees the company’s exposure to Latin America (LatAm) as a positive for stockpiles in the coming years.The demand for beer in the region is strongly correlated with the global commodity cycle and will remain strong even as commodity prices continue to rise.” LatAm consumers also have experience with current levels of inflation and will likely be more than he writes. The US-listed share of the stock is down 6.5% this year, but could add up to 24% from Friday’s closing price based on the bank’s price target. was up more than 4% before the Monday bell and 13% since early November – CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting