The last full week of March was choppy and took away most of the 2015 gains for the Dow and the S&P. Still, investors keep looking for value, and the trend has been set in stone that they will buy stocks on pullbacks. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst reports each day of the week to find hidden gems for its readers. Some of these analyst calls cover stocks to buy and some cover stocks to sell.
Where investors often find hidden value and great upside stories is in the small-cap stocks and in stocks under $10. While investors often see analysts calling for 10%, 20% or 30% upside in S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks, they often find analyst projections of 50%, 100% or more in some small-cap and low-priced stocks. Now that the bull market is six years old, many investors are looking for new ideas to find value or lesser known growth opportunity.
24/7 Wall St. would remind readers and investors that these small-cap and low-priced stocks almost unilaterally come with more risk than well-established Dow and S&P 500 stocks. Also, investors need to understand that not all analyst projections come to fruition. Some calls even feel like all-or-none gambles, and some of the companies that appear in this category may even disappear.
One common mistake that is made by investors in small-cap and low-priced stocks is the belief that most small companies eventually grow into huge companies. That just isn’t so. Low-priced and small-cap stocks are generally inappropriate for conservative investors — no widows and orphans funds.
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Projected upside in this week’s calls did have some analysts calling for as much as 50% and 100%. Again, that also implies far more risk. This past week we tracked eight key analyst calls in stocks that were under trading under $10 when the analysts made their calls.
Callaway Golf
Callaway Golf Co. (NYSE: ELY) was raised to Outperform from In-Line and the price target was raised to $12 from $8 by Imperial Capital on Monday. The prior close was $8.58, but shares had risen up to $9.49 by Friday’s closing price. Apparently golf may have some upside, with or without Tiger Woods being in tournaments.
Callaway’s 52-week range is $6.79 to $10.35, and the consensus analyst price target is $10.33. The $12 Imperial target price here still leaves an implied upside of 26% if the analyst is correct, and of the six analysts that cover the company the highest analyst target is $14.
Crossroads Systems
Crossroads Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CRDS) was started as Outperform with a $5 price target at Northland Securities on Tuesday. This was against a $2.77 prior close, but Crossroads shares took the wrong fork in the road this week. It closed at $2.48, and that drop just may have been tied to a weak broad market tape since there was no real news out after the analyst call.
Crossroads provides data protection solutions and services for enterprises that need to protect their data, but it has a micro-cap profile, as its market capitalization is just under $50 million. Still, if Northland is correct there is a chance for investors to double their money here. Just keep in mind that this company is so small that Northland is the only firm we can see with a formal rating on this stock.
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Groupon
Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) was given a key upgrade from Wunderlich on Wednesday, to Buy from Hold. The firm further raised its price target to $10 from $6 after the stock had closed at $7.56 the prior day, and it ended the week at $7.61. The consensus price target was $8.73 prior to the call, and the consensus target was $8.93 as of Friday’s close.
Wunderlich surveyed over 300 consumers, and the result showed that 78% of recent buyers intend to buy again within three months. Most of the trends were in local deals, and only 6% of those surveyed indicated that they would buy less ahead. If Wunderlich is right, there is an implied 31% or so upside in Groupon, even from the most recent close.
Navios Maritime Partners
Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NYSE: NMM) is being included here because the stock was at $9.75 when this call was made. The dry cargo vessel operator was raised to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank on Monday. It was also given a $15 price target, and it comes with a 16% yield equivalent, if that can be sustained. Even with shares at $11.08 as of Friday’s close, this is a call that implies upside remaining of about 36%, even before taking the massive dividend or distribution into consideration.
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Novavax
Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) was started as Buy at Citigroup, with a $10 price target. The biotech just released positive data on its Ebola vaccine. Shares rose by 8% to $8.22 on Friday after the Citi upgrade. Still, 24/7 Wall St. would point out that the company just raised $175 million or so in a stock offering this week — and guess which Wall Street firm was one of the two book-runners for the offering. If you want a hint, it rhymes with Citigroup.
The company’s drug data presentation was in an animal study, and the company said that the animals immunized with Novavax’s EBOV GP Vaccine remain healthy 18 days post-challenge. Novavax was a $9.50 stock just on Wednesday and it went as low as $7.50 before recovering.
Orexigen Therapeutics
Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: OREX) remains a small-cap stock, despite the obesity drug Mysimba receiving European approval this week. Orexigen is also the subject of class action lawsuits over investor losses. Still, RBC Capital Markets raised its target price to $14 from $10 on Friday, and the firm maintained its Outperform rating. With a $7.54 closing price for the week, this leaves an implied 85% upside, if RBC is correct. Orexigen has a 52-week trading range of $3.11 to $9.37 and a consensus price target closer to $13.50.
Pernix Therapeutics
Pernix Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PTX) was started as Outperform at Oppenheimer on Thursday. What stood out here was the $15 price target. That was versus the $9.68 prior closing price and compares to a $10.21 close on Friday. This implies close to 50% upside, if the firm is correct.
Oppenheimer called Pernix an emerging specialty pharma company that offers a “scarcity value of small-cap spec-pharma integrators.” It also sees a renewed focus on organic growth via Treximet and Silenor, upside potential from the pending Zohydro acquisition, and more value that may be unlocked from its Treximet lifecycle management. Also, the $15 price target is a sum-of-parts valuation for Treximet, Silenor and Zohydro, but it does not reflect upside potential from additional asset acquisitions.
Regions Financial
Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF) is making another appearance on the analyst stock picks under $10 this week. A firm named Compass Point raised its rating to Buy from Neutral on Friday. It also raised the target price to $11 from $10 in the call. Regions shares did not respond to the call at all, because the stock closed down 0.8% at $9.23 on Friday. Its 52-week range is $8.59 to $11.28 and the consensus price target is $10.54.
Investors may recall that things are getting better for Regions, or so it would seem after the Federal Reserve approved the bank’s request to increase its dividend to $0.06 from $0.05 per quarter — and it approved the bank’s request to use up to $875 million to repurchase common stock. That doesn’t sound too shabby when you consider that its market cap is about $12.4 billion.
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In case you missed the prior week’s analyst picks under $10, there 11 stocks in that report: Yamana Gold, Petrobras Argentina, NMI Holdings, New Gold, Black Diamond, Care.com, Cerulean Pharma, Energous, Information Services Group, Inotek Pharmaceuticals and Neovasc.
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