Thirteen Stocks Expected to Rise 40% to 100% -- or More

Investors and traders alike always seem to be on the lookout for new speculative investment ideas that can generate massive long-term or short-term gains. While investors get to see many Buy ratings and some Sell ratings, it is not usual for investors to hear from analysts that stocks could rise 40%, 50% or even 100% when the media has said over and over than anything over 8% is great return for equities in a year.

Investors also are finding themselves wondering what to do now that the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average keep hitting new record highs. 24/7 Wall St. has gone through literally hundreds of recent research calls from May and the end of April to find the speculative hidden gems in independent research and in Wall Street research that are calling for expected returns way above market.

Analysts are saying that these stocks could rise by 40%, 50% or even 100%. Our list of 13 fresh analyst stock picks calling for upside of 40% to 100% includes the following: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Alliance One International Inc. (NYSE: AOI), Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AAWW), Boulder Brands Inc. (NASDAQ: BDBD), Carbonite Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB), Chimerix, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMRX), Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW), Gulfport Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: GPOR), Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: KERX), LifeLock, Inc. (NYSE: LOCK), Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE: OAS), Pure Cycle Corp. (NASDAQ: PCYO) and Swift Energy Co. (NYSE: SFY).

We have added color or shown how these calls compare to the consensus price targets from Thomson Reuters to keep things in perspective.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) has been on a run, and the stock is threatening to break out of a long-term trading range. Wells Fargo recently maintained its $5 to $7 price range and its Outperform rating when it was talking up the lagging processor designer’s price changes. This still implies that AMD could double in price under the best case scenario from around $3.60 now. This may sound crazy to us, and maybe even to you, but AMD’s 52-week high is $7.32, even if the consensus price target is only about $2.85 here.

Alliance One International Inc. (NYSE: AOI) was just featured in a list of small caps from Deutsche Bank to buy. It provides cigarette manufacturers with the leaf tobacco to make their products. Its consensus price target is $6, which represents implied upside of more than 60% from the current share price around $3.70.

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AAWW) rose more than 5% at the start of the week to $44 because Barron’s gave it a writeup showing that it could rise 60% from recent prices. The report showed that cutbacks in military-cargo flights and international deliveries have hurt Atlas Air but its upgraded fleet and more growth elsewhere would drive the value and interest. Barron’s quoted a BB&T Capital Markets analyst calling for $60 on the stock, although it is barely above the consensus price target of $58.44, and one analyst still has an official target price much higher.

Boulder Brands Inc. (NASDAQ: BDBD) remains very much of a battleground stock. The gluten-free and healthier food themed player trades close to $9.10, and Canaccord Genuity has been very positive here on the stock. Its $13 price target implies about 43% upside from here, and we would note that the consensus price target from Wall Street is listed as $12.83.

Carbonite Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB) saw its price target raised to $14 after being maintained as Outperform by Oppenheimer after the online storage provider reported earnings. With shares at $10.00, this represents 40% upside. It is nearly a wonder as to why the market cap of about $260 million is not really higher, considering that DropBox and others have more value as cloud storage players.

Chimerix Inc. (NASDAQ: CMRX) is still a new company and it just came off of its quiet period, but Lazard Capital issued a Buy rating and a $32 price target on this small cap antiviral therapeutics outfit that aims to treat herpes, HIV, small pox, hepatitis C, influenza and other life-threatening viruses and indications. While earnings are upcoming in the next week, this represents a gain of more than 50% from the $20.90 current share price.

Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) was reiterated as Buy with a $20 price target by Argus at the end of April. The firm remains the most bullish on Wall Street with a 40% upside projection from the $14.23 share price at the time. Corning has recovered a bit more to $14.83, and the stock has been handily recovering from the 2012 lows of less than $11.00. Be advised that Argus has the street-high price target on Corning, and that the consensus price target is just above $15 on the stock.

Gulfport Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: GPOR) is a lesser known in oil and gas, but Jefferies recently highlighted it in a very positive broad oil and gas sector call. The Jefferies price objective was $78, versus about $58 for the consensus. Jefferies is the second-highest price target, with $80 being the highest, and this implies close to 45% from the $53.50 price recently.

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: KERX) was recently featured on a PropThink list of top biotech names with big upside. While a price target was not thrown out there, the consensus price target was almost $14 at the time and the stock is currently around $8.30. Now that consensus price target is down closer to $12.60, but that still represents more than 50% implied upside. This has been extremely volatile and is rather risky, as the 52-week range is $1.36 to $9.98, even if the PropThink team feels very comfortable here.

LifeLock Inc. (NYSE: LOCK) was trading at $8.98 before earnings, and Canaccord Genuity said that the stock was just too cheap at the current levels. The $12.50 price target at the time implied almost 40% upside then, but the price has strengthened to $9.65 since earnings. Canaccord called it “Locked and loaded for more good quarters; stock seems too cheap down here.” We would note that the consensus price target is up around $14 on the stock.

Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE: OAS) has been a great Bakken shale success story with high production and reserve growth rates. Jefferies highlighted this in its positive oil and gas sector call with a $50 price target, versus a consensus target of about $43 now. With shares at about $34.50, that implies 25% upside to the consensus but about 45% upside if Jefferies is right.

Pure Cycle Corp. (NASDAQ: PCYO) was given a Strong Buy rating and a $12.00 price target on the stock, which basically implied 100% upside to the $6.09 closing bell price last Friday. This small water and wastewater systems operator in Colorado was worth a mere $158 million in market cap, even after the strong call brought on close to a 10% rally in the shares. Also, be advised that this is the only call on Pure Cycle.

Swift Energy Co. (NYSE: SFY) was yet another top pick from the Jefferies oil and gas list of energy stocks to buy. This small cap has seen solid insider buying over the past year. Jefferies offered up a price target of $25, and the consensus target is more than $22 on the stock. With shares at about $13, this represents more than 90% upside to the Jefferies target and close to 70% to the consensus price target.

You can also see the list of stocks with 50% to 100% upside from April as well.

If you are wondering why you do not see such bullish calls on established companies from the likes of IBM, GE, 3M and others, that is simple. Most of those stocks have seen their major growth days, and it becomes very difficult for companies worth billions upon billions to just keep rising 40%, 50% and 100% after years and years of gains.