Analyst upgrades 3-09-07: National Semi, FedEx, Halliburton all upgraded today
Posted Mar 9th 2007 11:02AM by Kevin Shult
Filed under: Before the bell, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Good news, Halliburton (HAL), Brinker Intl (EAT), Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), FedEx Corp (FDX), Office Depot (ODP), Texas Instruments (TXN)
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Brinker International Inc (EAT), National Semiconductor Corp (NSM), and three select transportation stocks were today's more notable upgrades:
- UBS upgraded Brinker International Inc (NYSE: EAT) to Buy from Neutral with a $38 target, citing valuation following the recent sell-off.
- National Semiconductor Corp (NYSE: NSM) was upgraded to Accumulate from Source of Funds with a $28 target at ThinkEquity, following the company's Q3 report and guidance.
- Three transportation companies were upgraded at Stifel: Con-Way Inc (NYSE: CNW), FedEx Corp (NYSE: FDX) and Universal Truckload Services Inc (NASDAQ: UACL) were upgraded to Buy from Hold to reflect attractive valuations.
OTHER UPGRADES:
- Credit Suisse upgraded Office Depot, Inc (NYSE: ODP) to Outperform from Neutral.
- JMP Securities upgraded Texas Instruments Inc (NYSE: TXN) to Market Outperform from Market Perform ahead of the mid-quarter upgrade. Texas Instruments was also upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel.
- Calyon Securities upgraded Halliburton Co (NASDAQ: HAL) to Add from Neutral on valuation.
- Bernstein upgraded Charles Schwab Corp (NASDAQ: SCHW) to Outperform from Market Perform.
- BMO Capital Markets upgraded Cognos Inc (NASDAQ: COGN) to Outperform from Market Perform. BMO believes Cognos will receive additional business due to Oracle Corp's (NASDAQ: ORCL) acquisition of Hyperion Solutions Corp (NASDAQ: HYSL) and also see a greater chance that Cognos itself could be acquired.
- Cowen upgraded King Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: KG) to Neutral from Underperform citing Skelaxin's new label approval, which likely delays a generic.
Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required). Tags: analyst, charles schwab, CharlesSchwab, cnw, cogn, cognos, con-way, eat, fdx, fedex, hal, halliburton, kg, king pharma, KingPharma, national semi, NationalSemi, nsm, odp, office depot, OfficeDepot, schw, taxas inst, TaxasInst, thefliyonthewall.com, txn, uacl, universal truckload, UniversalTruckload, upgrade
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