Technology

4 Tech Analyst Upgrades Driving Shares Higher for Big Upside

Jon C. Ogg

Published: January 24, 2017 11:55 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 3:35 pm

Stocks were indicated higher on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, after having been flat early in the morning. What is interesting is that stocks have now traded sideways for about a month, and investors are still trying to figure out how to position their portfolios while the Trump administration is just getting underway. We have a bull market that is nearly eight years old, and investors are still looking to buy pullbacks and for opportunities.

24/7 Wall St. noticed a few technology upgrades that stood out handily on Tuesday. Color has been added if available, and consensus analyst target prices are the mean targets on each issued from Thomson Reuters. As a reminder, most analyst Buy and Outperform ratings being made in Dow or S&P 500 stocks come with implied upside of 8% to 15% at this time.

Broadcom Ltd. (NASDAQ: AVGO) saw its price target raised to $240 from $210 at Morgan Stanley. That implies upside of just over 25%, without giving consideration to Broadcom’s dividend yield of just over 2%. The shares were up 3.1% at $197.01 late Tuesday morning, in a 52-week range of $114.25 to $197.08 (that high was hit on Tuesday). Broadcom’s consensus analyst target price is $212.00, and the street high target is up at $250.00.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has seen mixed analyst calls ahead of earnings season, but Jefferies has a Buy rating and raised its price target to $175. The view here is strength of mobile that has not been rivaled by other web companies, where Facebook is a primary beneficiary from advertising dollars flowing into mobile ad campaigns on a global basis. The shares have a 52-week range of $94.23 to $133.50 and a consensus price target of $153.72. Facebook has a total addressable market cap of $371.7 billion.

After Open Text Corp. (NASDAQ: OTEX) recently completed its deal to acquire Documentum, we are just now starting to see analysts react. Barclays reinstated Open Text with an Overweight rating and assigned a $76 price target. Open Text shares were last seen up 2.4% at $65.16, but on thin volume. This company is based in Waterloo, Canada, and its shares have a 52-week range of $41.93 to $66.84. The consensus price target is $74.92.

Citigroup raised its rating on Tableau Software Inc. (NYSE: DATA) to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $64 from $50. The shares were up 2.2% at $45.70, and that implied upside of 43% from Monday’s closing price. The 52-week range is $36.60 to $82.92, and the consensus analyst target is $54.00. Tableau Software has a market cap of $3.5 billion.

Other key technology and related research views worth noting were seen as follows:

• Jefferies favors five software stocks  for big upside in 2017.
• Deutsche Bank has raised many chip stock targets for this year.
• One analyst sees 30% upside in PayPal.
• Did Netflix get too many upgrades from analysts?

Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades were in shares of Apple, Boeing, CSX, Deere, Humana, Potash Corp., Suncor Energy and many more stocks.