The 24/7 Wall St. Top 10 Analyst Calls of the Week (ALU, BIDU, C, FIG, GOOG, LULU, RENN, SHLD, SPRD, WDC)

Each morning we cover about fifteen top analyst calls for investors and traders to consider.  Some calls offer great insight, and some are quite literally career-killing flops.  At the end of the week we go back over the calls we covered and the ones we missed to highlight the “Top Analyst Calls of the Week.”  This week wave ten top research calls that stood out from the pack in the following: Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU); Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU); Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C); Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG); Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG); Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU); Renren Inc. (NYSE: RENN); Sears Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD); Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD); and Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC).

We have outlined the analyst calls, shown an impact and added in color on each if applicable.  As a bonus, we also covered a list of biotech buyout candidates from UBS and we covered the mega-IPO from London-listed Glencore as the commodity giant’s quiet period ended.

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) was raised to Buy at UBS on Thursday, and the implied price target was raised to $6.61.  The argument is that the selling from the peak in May has led to an oversold reading in the stock.  This is still one of the best recovered networking and telecom equipment players out there for 2011.

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) may be a controversial call here.  Sure China is slowing, but things are just picking back up for the stock and for some China players after getting beaten for weeks due to accounting fears in all aspects of China.  S&P Equity Research downgraded the shares to “Hold” from “Buy” on Thursday during the afternoon.  The stock paid no attention to the downgrade for all practical purposes.

Biotech and Emerging Pharma was given an interesting call from the analyst teams over at UBS.  The research group came up with four biotech buyout targets this week.

Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) was raised to Buy with a $53 target at BofA/Merrill Lynch this week and the macro-events must have been perfectly timed for this.  What is interesting is that this must have been a self-serving upgrade around the huge mortgage settlement that was also given an extra boost from the debit card swipe-fee being lifted from $0.12 to $0.21 on average.  We have always said this and still maintain it… “When analysts at investment banks upgrade their competitor shares, they may really be upgrading their own shares.”

Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG) was given a big private equity valuation pop as being much better positioned than many private equity peers.  Credit Suisse started analyst coverage with an “Outperform” and it gave it a $7.00 price target objective.  What matters about that is the implication… it was calling for more than 50% upside in the units.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) made a huge score this week. Canaccord Genuity reiterated its “Buy” rating on Google, but it also came out maintained its Street-High $800 price target.  That might be too aggressive for our own breaches, but that implied more than 60% upside.  Shares were at $480 on Monday and up close to $520 on Friday.  Not bad.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) hit a new all-time high on Friday, so this downgrade does not matter too much except that it means one more negative call about overvaluation.  LULU was downgraded to Neutral at Stern Agee on Thursday.

Renren Inc. (NYSE: RENN) had a good week after Credit Suisse initiated coverage with an “Outperform” rating, something that the IPO victims probably feel happy about.  On Tuesday it closed at $7.60 but the upgrade took it up to $8.57 and then the rest of the rally took it up above $9.00.  What is interesting is that the price target was only $9.20 and shares hit a high of $9.29.  Does Credit Suisse have to now issue a downgrade based on its price target being hit?

Sears Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD) does not get much in analyst calls, but Zacks left the shadow over it when it maintained its “Underperform” rating and gave it the dubious honor of being “The Bear of the Day.”  Sears shares rose this week, but not as much as many peers.

Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD) was hit hard by Muddy Waters on a short selling note, but the company defended itself and two analysts also gave positive ratings on the stock.  This one was already negative with  the trends coming out of China and the stock actually rallied massively.  In fact, if you bought at the peak of selling on Tuesday morning and sold at 2:30 on Friday you could have quite literally doubled your money.  We also were curious about this notion, without damning short sellers: Should short sellers be able to publicize their trading?

Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC) found itself a market winner and it was also re-upped by us as one of our few repeat Deep Value Core Tech Stocks for the Rest of 2011 this week.  Still, S&P Equity Research cut its rating to “Strong Sell” from what was an already-cautious “Hold” rating.

Glencore International does not trade in the U.S. but this does matter for many large commodity and metals conglomerate structures.  The recent IPO had been a dud and had fallen consistently up until this week.  Now the gloves are off after the quiet period and analysts gave it very positive coverage.  Here are the basic calls we saw, but we are not paying attention to price detail because it trades in London:

• UBS started it at Buy;
• Soc-Gen started it at Buy;
• Citigroup started it at Buy;
• Credit Suisse started it at Outperform;
• J.P. Morgan started it at Neutral;
• Morgan Stanley started it at Overweight.

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JON C. OGG