Each morning we give a quick hit to the top Wall Street analyst upgrades and downgrades that we see.  As you might expect, some calls are much better, are much more aggressive, or have much deeper insight than others.  On Saturday we prefer to give you the biggest standout calls from the week. The top analyst research calls in the last week by our take covered shares of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRCD), Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN), DryShips, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS), SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI), Solazyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: SZYM), TASER International Inc. (NASDAQ: TASR), and Vonage Holdings Corporation (NYSE: VG).

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRCD) saw a big move on Thursday and shares hit a new 52-week high on both Thursday and Friday. Paul Mansky at Canaccord Genuity noted that Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) should acquire the company and this sent shares off to the races.  The stock was at $6.67 on Wednesday and closed at $7.13 Friday for a gain of about 7%.  When the call was made, the shares traded 5-times normal volume.  Our take: Mansky’s call is one we agree with.

Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) was given yet another top-call of the week as Goldman Sachs started coverage with a Buy rating and issued a $50.00 price target objective.  Goldman Sachs sees Provenge being a very successful drug in te fight against late-stage prostate cancer.  This flies against a very cautions call recently from Credit Suisse where that firm gave a $29 price target.

DryShips, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) was given a large upgrade by Goldman Sachs and you rarely see analysts upgrade or downgrade this stock.  The firm raised the rating to Buy from Neutral and it raised the price target objective to $6.00 from $5.50.  This is not even a year-high as the 52-week range is $3.28 to $6.44.  The pop on Friday was considerable.  Before the call, DryShips was trading at $3.83 and that implied upside of 56% to that $6.00 target.  The call does not even get too aggressive compared to other research calls as the consensus price target is actually $6.45.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) now has a new street-high target of $2.75 from Zacks.  The rating company also raised its rating to “Outperform” and it was touted as the “Bull of the Day” in the call. More details are here.

Solazyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: SZYM) is the new hot renewable energy company that we noted may have gotten the nanotech sector back on the map.  It has only been public for a week, but Raymond James initiated coverage with an “Outperform” rating and gave it a $25 price target.  This one priced at $18.00, closed at $20.71 on its first day and closed this last Friday at $23.47.  The value and interest around this IPO has also generated close to a 10% higher valuation for holder Harris & Harris Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TINY).

TASER International Inc. (NASDAQ: TASR) is not one you routinely see coverage in and there is irony here despite a drop of almost 5% for the week.  This week TASER was “Tased” by J.P.Morgan with a downgrade from an already cautious Neutral rating down to a worse “Underweight” rating.  Effectively that is a “Sell” rating but the firm does not have a “Sell” rating in its official coverage.  Oddly enough, there is some irony here.  The price target on the call is $5.00, so there is actually an implied upside of almost 13% from Friday’s close of $4.43.

Vonage Holdings Corporation (NYSE: VG) is one company you rarely see analysts give coverage on.  This week came a report from Janco Partners, initiating coverage with a “Buy” rating and a $6.00 price target.  Janco’s report is based upon growing penetration of the ILD market, which it thinks will help with the churn rates and will help increase EBITDA margins.  Also noted was that Vonage’s free cash flow profile should improve considering the capex is flat around $40 to $50 million, which should help the company pay down debt.  Because the market was soft this did not create a massive run, but shares the prior Friday were at $4.67 and the close on Friday was $4.80.

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JON C. OGG

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