It's always a good idea for investors to track analyst upgrades. That’s because these investing professionals usually have access to a company’s financial data and executive team at a level most retail investors never enjoy.
Analyst upgrades and price revisions are influenced by:
- Company fundamentals, such as financial health, future growth, and even meetings with management
- Industry and market trends, including specific market conditions and economics.
- Earnings and financial data, including earnings reports that came in better than expected, or competitive analysis of a competitor, and guidance.
- They may be piling into a stock based on interest from other firms.
However, you should never rely solely on analyst upgrades when deciding whether to buy a stock. Instead, pay attention to what's happening technically
and fundamentally. The last thing you want to do is buy into a recently upgraded, but overvalued stock. That's a great way to lose money.
Here are some of the stocks with recent analyst upgrades you may want to consider.
Stocks with Analyst Upgrades: Penn Entertainment (PENN)
Stifel upgraded Penn Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ: PENN) to a Buy rating, with a price target of $21 a share. That’s approximately 50% above the PENN stock price as of this writing. This follows its termination of its sports betting agreement with ESPN earlier than planned.
"When we first announced our partnership with ESPN, both sides made it clear that we expected to compete for a podium position in the space," said Jay Snowden, CEO and President of PENN Entertainment, in a company press release.
"Although we made significant progress in improving our product offering and building a cohesive ecosystem with ESPN, we have mutually and amicably agreed to wind down our collaboration. We plan to realign our digital focus on our growing iCasino business, while continuing to capitalize on our omnichannel advantage as the nation's leading regional retail casino operator," he added.
Stocks with Analyst Upgrades: Nvidia (NVDA)
Analysts at Bernstein reiterated an outperform rating on Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) ahead of earnings and said NVDA is a key player in the robotic chip market.
Loop Capital reiterated its buy rating on the tech giant and hiked its price target to $350 from $250. The firm believes NVDA can double its GPU shipments over the next year to 15 months to 2.1 million by the January 2026 quarter.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its buy rating on NVDA with a price target of $240 from $210 ahead of earnings, as well. The firm believes investor expectations have risen heading into NVDA's earnings, driven by multiple AI infrastructure announcements.
The firm also believes the company will deliver another beat-and-raise quarter. Also helping Nvidia is news that Microsoft secured export licenses from the Trump Administration to ship NVDA chips to the United Arab Emirates.
Stocks with Analyst Upgrades: Snap (SNAP)
Deutsche Bank just reiterated its buy rating on Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP), raising its price target to $12 from $9. That’s about 50% higher than the SNAP stock price as of this writing.
The firm noted that SNAP's partnership with Perplexity AI is a strong step toward building out alternative revenue streams. Snap also reported strong revenue that was above expectations while saying it would buy back $500 million worth of stock.
The company also announced a new partnership with Perplexity, a company that develops an AI search engine, which will be featured on the Snapchat app. In doing so, Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million over the course of a year, which will be split between cash and stock.
