24/7 Wall St. Top Analyst Calls of the Week (BK, BEAM, CTIC, CSCO, DMD, FSLR, GE, GS, RAX, S, VPRT, AAPL)

Each morning 24/7 Wall St. compiles a summary of the analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall St. research firms that are having an impact on stocks. At the end of the week we review these calls to see which ones stand out the most. Some are great calls that were greatly insightful, some are long-term and far-reaching in nature that may be relevant well into the future, and some manage to be just awful. After filtering these calls out, these become the top analyst calls of the week.

This weeks top analyst calls were in the following stocks: Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK); Beam (NYSE: BEAM); Cell Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CTIC); Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO); Demand Media (NYSE: DMD); First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR); General Electric (NYSE: GE); Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS); Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX); Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S); and Vistaprint (NASDAQ: VPRT). We also have a rivaling look at Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) as we look for upside elsewhere.

We have added in summaries, links to more details of these calls, and added in color where applicable.

Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK) has already been punished hard with banks and fiduciary banks. This last Thursday came a call from Zacks, calling it the Bear of the Day due to overhanging issues ahead. Keep in mind that this one has earnings this coming week.

Beam (NYSE: BEAM) is now on its own and we saw in the first week of October that the alcohol producer had been given an Overweight by Barclays and been put on the Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs. Now this last week came a more cautious report from Argus, who only gave a Hold rating. We will be tracking this one as Argus often looks at metrics that many other analyst reports do not take into consideration.

Cell Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CTIC) was given a highly unusual call from Zacks as the Bull of the Day on Friday with full details at BiohealthInvestor.com. This was actually a raise to Outperform based on a likely approval of pixantrone. Analysts often shy away from covering low-priced small cap stocks of this nature.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is well off of its lows and the company is in the middle of its restructuring. A firm called ISI Group started Cisco with a Buy rating and a $20.00 price target this last Friday.

Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) managed to come back strong on Friday, but on this last Wednesday (and the afternoon before) its shares were being hit hard. The controversial online content site was downgraded to Neutral at Goldman Sachs. The new price target was taken down to $8.20 as this one trades at about 33-times consensus earnings estimates for 2011.

First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) had another rough week as the woes of solar continue in an age of austerity and when politics are being critical of loans to the sector. The U.S. leader saw its stock cut to Sell by Ticonderoga Securities this week. To make matters worse, Jim Cramer gave an awful review of its prospects ahead and this is likely only going to be followed by more negative comments from him on CNBC for the weeks ahead.

General Electric (NYSE: GE) was initiated with coverage as Overweight at Barclays with a $20 price target. This implies upside of 20% but this is also $1.00 short of the consensus price target objective from the overall analyst community. Why this matters is that earnings are due this coming Friday.

Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) is now well under $100 at $96.73 and it has earnings due this coming week. We could not help but to notice how Citigroup came out with a report early this last week with the expectation that Goldman Sachs will actually now report an operating loss for the quarter. The consensus is now -$0.15 EPS, down from as much as about $0.50 EPS just a week or two earlier.

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) had a solid week, but we have an analyst war here. This last Thursday came two opposite calls. The stock was raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs with a $54.00 price target, but the web hosting company was also downgraded to Hold at a firm called Benchmark. The upside call implies 35% upside and we would not that the call was about $10.00 than the consensus price target.

Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) took all sorts of downgrades this last week. If you want to hear irony, imagine this … Despite the downgrades, Sprint’s shares closed up 15% for the week and they closed up 25% from the low close on Monday. Moody’s downgraded its debt based on financial concerns, and here are some of the other calls:

• Cut to Hold at Argus;
• Removed from U.S. Focus List at Credit Suisse;
• Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan;
• Cut to Hold at Kaufman Bros.;
• Cut to Hold at Collins Stewart;
• Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Vistaprint (NASDAQ: VPRT) had a change of direction this week. The stock was starting off well, but then changed direction after the printing services outfit was downgraded to Sell at Goldman Sachs on Wednesday. Shares closed even lower on Friday and this pre-report price of $31.83 ended up down at $28.71 at the close of trading on Friday versus a 52-week trading range of $23.89 to $56.25.

Here were some other analyst calls worth watching this last week:

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the darling of Wall St. (and Main Street). We took a look at its expected upside, and here are 12 stocks expected to outperform Apple’s stock over the next year.

Here is a list of stocks in the various aspects of the metals sector with upside. Also, France and Germany have to tread cautiously when they enter into this bank recapitalization plan. Their “AAA” debt ratings could be at risk if they make the wrong moves.

JON C. OGG