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Analyst upgrades:- Jefferies upgraded shares of SourceFire (NASDAQ:FIRE) to Buy from Hold as they believe the company is benefiting from recent spending by the U.S. Federal government and private enterprises to improve cybersecurity. The firm raised their price target on the stock to $11 from $7.
- Piper Jaffray upgraded Brocade (NASADAQ:BRCD) to Buy from Neutral as they believe an expanded OEM announcement with IBM (NYSE:IBM) could be announced as early as the end of April, creating a positive catalyst. The firm raised their price target on the stock to $6 from $4.
- UBS upgraded Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) to Buy from Sell but lowered their target to $4 from $21 citing reduced churn and cashflow concerns, expectations for FY10 to be a trough year, and a potential reacceleration in deferred growth.
- AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
- Strattec (NASDAQ:STRT) was raised to Neutral from Underperform at Baird.
- Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU) was upgraded at William Blair to Outperform from Market Perform.
Analyst downgrades:
- Keefe Bruyette downgraded shares of Wells Fargo NYSE:WFC) to Underperform from Market Perform on valuation following the stock's rally on Thursday. The firm maintains a $12 price target on shares.
- FBR Capital downgraded VASCO Data Security (NASDAQ:VDSI) to Market Perform from Outperform after channel checks indicated authentication spending has slowed due to the current environment. The firm lowered their price target on the stock to $7.50 from $8.50.
- Oppenheimer cut Corning (NYSE:GLW) to Perform from Outperform on valuation as they believe strong Q1 results are already priced into the stock and that consensus estimates for the second half of 2009 and 2010 have only moderate upside potential.
- Eaton (NYSE:ETN) and Intuit NASDAQ:INTU) were lowered to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
- Autoliv (NYSE:ALV) was downgraded at Baird to Underperform from Neutral.
- Piper assumed shares of Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) with a Buy rating and raised their price target on the stock to $14 from $10.
- Thomas Weisel is positive on Isis Pharmaceuticals' (NASDAQ:ISIS) broad intellectual property for RNA-based therapeutics, strong cash position, and discovery platform. Shares were started with an Overweight rating and $21 target.
- Citigroup believes Goldman (NYSE:GS) is positioned to gain significant market share in key institutional businesses and finds the stock attractively valued at current levels. The firm set a Buy rating and $145 price target on the stock.
- Banc of America/Merrill initiated Varian Semi (NASDAQ:VSEA) with an Underperform rating and $19 target.
- Synaptics (NASDAQ:SYNA) was initiated with an Above Average rating at Caris.
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