Monday's Key Technology Analyst Upgrades (ARBA, JNPR, NFLX, RVBD, SNDK, NT)

Some of the analyst upgrades in technology are just a reversal of an extreme negative bias to a cautious or neutral tone, but as you will see below there are a few standout calls.  There is also one call which an analyst should be ashamed of….  here are the tech research calls:

• Ariba (NASDAQ: ARBA) was raised from Neutral to Outperform at Cowen.
• Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR) was raisaed from Perform to Outperform at Oppenheimer.
• Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) was reaised from Hold to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
• Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD) was raised from Sell to Neutral at UBS.
• SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) was raised from Underperform to Neutral at Cowen.    

For whatever this is worth, Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) was downgradedby UBS to neutral from buy.  Shares are down 3% at $1.19 and its52-week trading range is $1.05 to $19.50.  Talk about the world’stardiest research call.

Jon C. Ogg
October 27, 2008