Investing

5 Key Analyst Stock Picks With 50% to 100% Upside (or Even More)

With the stock market having finally decided to take a breather this past week, 24/7 Wall St. wanted to review some of the most aggressive analyst upgrades and rehashed ratings where analysts were calling for huge upside going into summer. At issue here is that the bull market is now six years old, and investors have spent almost four years buying back every single stock market pullback.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations each day of the week. The goal is to find new trading and investing ideas for readers. Most Buy ratings in Dow and S&P 500 stocks come with upside projections from analysts that imply gains of 10% to 20%. Then there are the exceptional upside calls with more risk, where an analyst sees upside of 30%, 50% or even 100%.

In the second half of May, there were multiple analyst calls in which huge upside projections were issued in known stocks. We decided to look at some of the calls in better known stocks where analysts were calling for upside of close to 50%, but many were much higher. The caveat that investors need to consider is that any time an analyst sees upside of 40%, 50% or 100%, then you know the firm is being very aggressive and these are likely not stocks for conservative investors.

Again, there are no Dow stocks here. The most aggressive calls in companies with high volume and with recognized names were as follows: MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD) in inhalable insulin; Mobileye N.V. (NYSE: MBLY) in driver assistance systems; Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS) in 3D printing; Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: SGYP) in biotech; and Telenav Inc. (NASDAQ: TNAV) in personal navigation services.

In order to not just present each of these in the most positive light that might trick investors into thinking nothing could ever go wrong, 24/7 Wall St. also put up negative analyst calls if available for balance. If such calls were not readily available, then color was added on each of these to highlight caution or the other side of the coin. Some of these also have links to more detail on the call. Again, these all come with far greater risk than Dow stocks.

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MannKind

MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD) is about as controversial as it can come when it comes to biotech, pharma and health care. A report from Jefferies came out in the middle of May that highlighted a serious issue that could make this greatly overlooked. Apparently more than one-third of doctors surveyed who treat diabetes patients were not even aware that the inhalable insulin drug delivery was available, which means that Afrezza just has not even managed to really break into the marketplace. Jefferies thinks an upcoming advertising campaign may increase doctor and patient interest. When Jefferies reiterated its Buy rating, it maintained its $9.00 price target. If that were to be true now at $5.18, that implies upside of a whopping 73%.

Not everyone is positive on MannKind which we addressed in a potential bottoming out analysis. Many investors and analysts think this one is a bust. Short sellers have well over 100 million shares of MannKind short now. Goldman Sachs has a Sell rating with a $2 price target, and JPMorgan has an Underweight rating. MannKind’s consensus analyst target price is $6.68, but obviously the calls are all over the place.

Stratasys

Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS) may have finally found a friend in the analyst community. Oppenheimer came out on May 21 as very positive on Stratasys and very negative on 3D printing rival 3D Systems Corp. (NYSE: DDD). Stratasys was given a key upgrade to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer, but what really stood out on top of the “why” was the firm’s $50 price target. Shares were at $34.97 before the call, and they closed out May at $35.56, so there is still an implied upside here of better than 40%.

Oppenheimer said that Stratasys was working through problems tied to an acquisition and that it should resume growth ahead. Oppenheimer even said that it offered a far better value scenario than rival 3D Systems. The consensus price target is now closer to $46.00. Investors just need to remember how volatile this sector is (and how painful it has been to be a 3D printing investor). Stratasys has a 52-week range of $33.85 to $130.83.

Mobileye

Mobileye N.V. (NYSE: MBLY) is currently believed to be the king of technology for camera-based advanced driver assistance systems. Citigroup came out on May 21 and reiterated its Buy rating. What stood out was that the price target was raised to $70 from $62. This was versus a $46.10 prior close and versus a $47.08 close on the last day of May. If Citigroup turns out to be right, then Mobileye shares could be worth right at 50% more than they are now. Part of the driving force here was a positive earnings report.

When we looked at the other firms covering Mobileye, it turns out that the consensus price target is closer to $59.00. Also, we would point out that the Citigroup target of $70 is the most optimistic of all analyst target prices tracked by Thomson Reuters. The driver here is that Mobileye’s competitive advantage against competition seemed to be getting wider rather than narrower, a potential massive win for this $10 billion Israel-based auto-tech leader.

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Synergy Pharmaceuticals

Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: SGYP) was started as Buy at Canaccord Genuity in the last week of May. What stood out was its price target of $11, versus a pre-call closing price of $4.29 and that May-end price of $4.30. The firm admitted that it has never been shy about taking swings in front of binary outcomes, and the firm went on to say that this one qualified as one of the biggest examples it has seen in a while. This feels like a “swing for the fences” call, but if things work out then Canaccord Genuity’s implied upside is over 150%. The lowest target of the five analysts covering it is $5.75, and $8.50 is the median target price.

The driver here is four Phase 3 trials maturing over the next 12 months: in chronic idiopathic constipation and constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome, with a high likelihood of success and a large total market opportunity (that Actavis/Ironwood is still developing with Linzess). Canaccord further said that it would be an attractive buyout candidate if successful in Phase 3 trials since it owns full worldwide rights on plecanatide. The market cap for Synergy Pharma is $430 million and the 52-week range is $2.45 to $4.68.

Telenav

Telenav Inc. (NASDAQ: TNAV) is into personalized mobile navigation services. While many of us just get that from our smartphone now, Northland Securities sees huge upside here. The firm started Telenav as Outperform and it assigned a $15 price target. That compared to a pre-call closing price of $8.86 and a May-end close of $9.03.

What Northland Securities sees actually makes it the highest analyst target of the three analysts that follow Telenav. The other two targets are $6.00 and $11.00 for this small cap stock. Telenav has a 52-week range of $4.70 to $9.83, and if the firm is right then there is still some 66% upside remaining in the stock. Just keep in mind that revenue declined for the past two years to $150 million in 2014, and it may decline again this year (June fiscal year-end). Its market cap is also only $364 million.

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Again, investors need to understand that it is not normal to see massive upside calls of 50%, 100%, or more. This implies much more risk than the 8% to 20% upside calls seen in Dow and S&P 500 stocks.

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