24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each morning. This ends up tallying up to hundreds of analyst reports each week. Our goal is to find new investing and trading ideas for our readers.
In the category of stocks to buy, it is the speculative and low-priced stocks which can come with far greater implied upside than Dow and S&P 500 stocks. Safe stocks to buy come with analyst upside targets in the range of 8% to 15% at this point in the bull market. The projected upside in speculative companies is often more than 30%, 50% or even over 100%.
Before you blindly jump in here looking for massive upside, investors need to take some caution. Not every upside target will be hit. Some serious issues can ruin the story, and sometimes analysts have assumptions that prove to be entirely wrong. And sometimes there are outside forces or unexpected events which wreck a company’s upside. Then are instances where management just falls short on their ability to deliver.
24/7 Wall St. tries to warns its readers over and over that there is no free lunch when it comes to investing. That is true for stocks, bonds, commodities and just about every other asset class. It often does not seem fair when it happens, but you can make projections that come true and then the market simply refuses to value it with the same upside. Sometimes companies even implode and disappear. Again, there’s no free lunch on Wall Street.
Again, investors need to understand that low-priced stocks and small cap stocks generally come with larger risks. Even all that huge potential upside doesn’t change that. These are the analyst picks from in stocks with huge upside targets in the under-$10 segment from the week of August 12.
BARCLAYS
Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at BNP Paribas on August 8. While the price target was in Euros and Pounds, the ADSs closed at $8.47 and have a 52-week range of $6.76 to $17.23 in New York trading. Barclays also has a US consensus price target of $8.79.
Sadly, this ADS was above $50 before the recession and financial meltdown. 2016 has not been kind to Barclays as its ADSs are down about 33% so far this year.
BLACKBERRY
BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James on Friday, with a $10.50 price target. BlackBerry previously closed at $7.88 ahead of the call and has a 52-week range of $5.96 to $9.46.
BlackBerry shares are still lagging the market in 2016, with a year-to-date performance of -13%. Surprisingly, BlackBerry shares closed up only 2.5% at $8.08 after this upgrade was made.
INVENSENSE
InvenSense, Inc. (NYSE: INVN) was raised to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest on Friday. It was also given a $9.00 price target versus a prior $6.80 close, but InvenSense shares closed up a sharp 12.5% at $7.65 on Friday after the call. Some think of this as a Pokémon Go play now, but this is not the first week it has been noted in the analyst upgrades under $10 per share.
InvenSense has a 52-week range of $5.42 to $12.77 and now has a consensus analyst price target of $7.69. InvenSense shares are actually down 25% so far this year.
SLM
SLM Corp. (NASDAQ: SLM) was already rated as Buy with a $9.00 price target at Goldman Sachs, but on August 10 news broke that SLM was added to the prized Conviction Buy list. That doesn’t exactly sound like a free-college tuition and loan-free effort of Hillary and Bernie is going to kill the company’s student loan business.
SLM closed at $7.09 ahead of the call and it closed out the week at $7.26. The stock’s 52-week range is $5.09 to $9.33 and it has a consensus analyst price target of $9.56. SLM shares are up 11% so far in 2016.
VIVINT SOLAR
Vivint Solar Inc. (NYSE: VSLR) was raised to Outperform at Oppenheimer on August 9, but what stood out here was the firm’s $7.00 price target. That is going to represent over 100% upside from the prior $3.19 closing price from before this call was made. Vivint Solar shares rallied at high as $3.65, but then came the stupendous blunder of an earnings report from SunPower that made anything solar stink.
Vivint closed at $3.23 on Friday, almost a full circle back to where it started. The reality is that Vivint would have almost certainly fared far better had it not been for the SunPower implosion.
Other key analyst upgrades or price target hikes seen in stocks trading under $10 during the week of August 12 were as follows:
HARMONIC
Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ: HLIT) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $6.00 price target (versus a prior $3.37 close) at Drexel Hamilton. Harmonic shares closed out the week at $4.17.
Harmonic has a 52-week range of $2.51 to $6.31 and a consensus analyst price target of $5.38. Harmonic shares are up only about 2.5% so far in 2016.
OCLARO
Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCLR) was started with an Outperform rating and was assigned a $9.00 price target (versus a prior $6.31 close) at Cowen & Co. Oclaro closed out the week at $6.84 after a 10.3% gain on Friday.
It now has a higher 52-week range of $2.24 to $6.97. Oclaro shares are now up 96% so far in 2016.
OCULAR
Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCUL) was started with an Outperform rating at JMP Securities on August 11. What stood out here was a whopping $21.00 price target versus a prior closing price of $5.84. The stock’s potential upside seems crazy on the surface, but the reality is that this has a 52-week range of $4.04 to $20.47.
It is also very thinly covered by analysts and it’s market cap is just $168 million. The call did get some attention as Ocular Therapeutix shares closed at $6.78 on Friday after gaining 7.6% even the following day after the upgrade.
ONCONOVA
Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ONTX) was started with a Buy rating at the firm Maxim Group on August 11. The firm assigned a $6.00 price target, which implied close to 100% upside from the prior $3.27 closing price.
Onconova closed out the week at $3.61, implying that there is still some 66% in upside if Maxim’s target gets hit. Keep in mind that the market cap is a true micro-cap here at close to $10 million, so we were reluctant to even include it. Also, its 52-week range of $3.13 to $23.30 should prove just how volatile it can be.
By: Jon C. Ogg (24/7 Wall Street).
Photo 1: Venture Beat.
Photo 2: Gawker.
Photo 3: The Globe and Mail.
Photo 4: The Motley Fool.
Photo 5: Getty Images.
Photo 6: International Business Times.
Photo 7: YouTube.
Photo 8: Oclaro Inc.
Photo 9: Bidness Etc.
Photo 10: Vimeo.
Review: Emerging Market Formulations & Research Unit, FLAGSHIP RECORDS.
For The #FacebookTeam
Review: Emerging Market Formulations & Research Unit, FLAGSHIP RECORDS.
For The #FacebookTeam