Investing

Twelve Analyst Stocks Trading Under $10 With Huge Implied Upside

Stocks have pulled back from their all-time highs after escalation of civil war in Iraq, but Friday managed to close higher. Investors remain bullish, and they keep hearing that the bull market has morphed into a stock picker’s market. Each day of the week, 24/7 Wall St. reviews analyst research reports that cover stocks to buy and stocks to sell. At the end of each week we look at the analyst stocks that were given positive ratings that trade under $10.

We would caution readers that stocks trading under $10 are among the riskiest of all stocks. Still, they can also have much larger implied upside if the analysts get their calls right. Some analysts even make projections of 50%, 100% or even exponential upside.

Investors are still looking for gains, but they will be selective in their picks to avoid getting caught in bad stocks. If you want to see proof of this, consider that as of Friday there were only four stocks trading under $10 that are members of the S&P 500 Index.

Another risk test in stocks under $10 is that almost all of these would fail the “widows and orphans” suitability test, a term that brokers and financial advisors have to consider when it comes to ethics and suitability for clients.

These are the 12 analyst stocks we tracked this past week with huge implied upside, if the analysts are correct in their calls.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) was given a daily double last Tuesday. The stock rose on the calls and on Intel, despite a lower stock market. The gains likely would have been more had the market been strong. AMD was started as Outperform with a $5 price target at Imperial Capital. Canaccord Genuity also resumed coverage at Buy with a $5 price target, saying that the earnings recovery is being driven by diversified growth with a focus on operating margins. More details were provided in a dedicated article.

Alcatel-Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU) was raised to Neutral from Underweight at HSBC this past Tuesday. While this is hardly much of an upgrade on the surface, it did remove one of the remaining equivalents of a “Sell” rating. The ADSs still closed down on the week.

ALSO READ: Friday’s Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Fusion-io, Inc. (NYSE: FIO) was started with a Buy rating and given a $12.50 price target at Roth Capital Partners on Friday. Shares were at $8.83 prior to the call, but the stock rose 5% to $9.28 by Friday’s close. Keep in mind that the 52-week range is $7.77 to $15.59 and that the consensus price target is $11.88. Fusion-io has seen $12.50 and higher not that long ago, and there is still one analyst who sees fair value ahead north of $15.

Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: HALO) was raised to Buy from Neutral and given a $16 price target by UBS this past Thursday. While the stock closed at $10.07 on Friday, the share price was $9.39 prior to the upgrade. We will leave it up to you to decide if the extra seven cents above 10 should have excluded it from the list. Our take: what is seven cents among friends?

MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD) rose to $10.52 on Friday after a 7.5% gain, but the stock was at $9.78 when RBC Capital Markets started the speculative biotech player with an Outperform rating with a $16 price target. This is now the street-high target and implies more than 50% upside. We gave a full synopsis of this call and the FDA outlook on top of that ahead of next month’s key decision.

National Bank of Greece S.A. (NYSE: NBG) is going to have a solid Monday, regardless of what we say about. After all, Barron’s gave it a feature turnaround story this weekend. Still, we saw upgrades this last week. NBG was started with an Outperform rating at Credit Suisse, although the firm does note that it is skeptical about the bullish story for Greek banking stocks in general. The firm said that NBG is expected to cover its cost of capital in 2016 and 2017 under all three scenarios (bull, base, bear). Last week’s “analyst stocks under $10” included two positive research notes, one from Nomura, one from Deutsche Bank.

ALSO READ: 11 Ways to Avoid the Next Stock Market Crash

Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE: NM) was started with a Buy rating on Wednesday by Canaccord Genuity. Its target was $14, implying upside of more than 40% from the $9.86 close on Friday. The stock did briefly rise above $10 on Thursday. Canaccord called it “head of the class.”

ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ONNN) was reiterated as Buy on Tuesday, but the price target was raised to $13 from $12 at Sterne Agee, after announcing a $400 million acquisition of Aptina Imaging in an accretive merger. Unfortunately, Morgan Stanley maintained its Underweight rating.

OraSure Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OSUR) was reiterated as Buy at Canaccord Genuity and the firm raised its price target to $11 from $10. Shares ended the week at $8.09, and the consensus price target is only $9.25. The firm said that more details will need to be seen, but it likes the AbbVie deal.

Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: OREX) was featured in more detail among our stocks that analysts say could double. Despite a three-month setback from the FDA on its obesity drug Contrave, several analysts see this $5.85 stock going much higher. On Thursday, Credit Suisse maintained its Outperform rating and $10 price target. Other target prices seen were $12 from Merrill Lynch and $16 from Leerink Swann.

Paragon Shipping Inc. (NASDAQ: PRGN) was given an analyst call saying that the stock could double. Canaccord Genuity initiated coverage on the small $114 million market cap stock with a Buy rating and gave it a $12 price target. Shares closed at $5.55 on Friday, and the consensus price target is just under $10. The firm sees a hidden value here.

ALSO READ: 10 Large Cap Stocks to Hold Forever

Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) was raised to Outperform from Neutral by Macquarie this past Tuesday. The firm thinks that a Sprint merger is likely, and it opined that Sprint could be worth as much as $13 in the right scenario. We would also point out that Merrill Lynch said on Monday that it does not like Sprint, with or without T-Mobile. Sprint closed Friday at $8.73.

Last week’s analyst stocks to buy under $10 for huge implied upside included companies such as Abraxas Petroleum, Advantage Oil & Gas, Bio-Path, Halcon Resources, Hercules Offshore, ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, JAKKS Pacific, Kofax, Magnum Hunter Resources, National Bank of Greece, Rubicon Technology and SUPERVALU.

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