BlackBerry Scores Key Upgrade from Morgan Stanley

Telecom & Wireless

Published: March 20, 2013 7:55 am

BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY) is getting a key Wall St. analyst upgrade this Wednesday. Morgan Stanley raised the turnaround and still troubled smartphone maker to Overweight. What stands out is that the upgrade is not just from a Neutral or Market Weight bias. The prior rating was Underweight.

This effectively is being taken as a “Sell to Buy” upgrade, and the price target more than doubled from $10 all the way up to $22 for the stock.

The move is based on adoption of BB10 expanding gross margins and increasing average selling prices. This even assumes a lower service attachment rate and low assumptions on sales numbers.

Wall St. has been slow to lift its ratings on BlackBerry. The company has been such a disappointment and has lost so much room to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) via the iPhone and to Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for Android that it has been a monumental failure. At one point the stock looked as though it was going to disappear, but now shares have doubled off of the lows.

Shares are not just up marginally this morning. The stock is up 6.5% at $16.02, against a 52-week range of $6.22 to $18.32, and volume is strong in premarket trading.

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