Investing

7 Analyst Stock Picks Under $10 With Massive Upside Calls

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The week of July 1 was a wild and zany week. After post-Brexit selling, investors decided to step back in to buy stocks on the cheap. Many sectors rose if they were defensive or if they were domestically focused. Yet again we have found that investors will step in and buy their favorite stocks after big sell-offs.

24/7 Wall St. is constantly hunting for opportunities or hidden value in the financial markets. Each morning we review dozens of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations. It ends up being hundreds of analyst calls each week.

One category of analyst calls that often comes with great upside is in the small-cap and low-priced stocks. In that group, there are the stocks trading under $10.00 and some of these calls come with upside that is far higher than the traditional 10% to 15% upside usually given in Buy ratings on Dow or S&P 500 stocks.

24/7 Wall St. tries to warn its readers endlessly that it is best not to trust any analyst call blindly. Investors need to understand that small cap or low-priced stocks often come with far greater risk than Blue Chips. The reality is that there just is no such thing as a free lunch on Wall Street.

The proof of much more risk in small cap or low-priced stocks is that many of these companies could flounder or even cease to exist in the years ahead. Also, sometimes analysts just get their calls wrong from start to finish. Sometimes unrelated outside forces destroy the companies. And sometimes companies just fail to live up to their upside potential.

Here are seven stocks trading under $10.00 with massive analyst upside targets from the week of July 1.

Alamos Gold, Inc. (NYSE: AGI) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse on June 30. Its price target was raised to $11.00 from $7.25, versus a prior $8.38 closing price. Alamos was trading at $8.67 after the upgrade, and the gold player saw its stock hit a 52-week high on the heels of the call. Credit Suisse sees Alamos upside through its pipeline growth opportunities.

CPI Card Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PMTS) was started with a Buy rating at Craig-Halum on June 28. CPI Card had a prior close of $4.48 and the price target assigned was $8.00. This company is a big player in making pre-paid credit cards, as well as credit and debit cards, and the EMV chip, personalization, instant issuance, fulfillment and mobile payment services.  CPI Card was trading at $4.85 late in the week, but it has a 52-week range of $3.38 to $13.50. Disappointing earnings in May took the wind out of CPI’s sails, creating a drop from $7.66 to almost $4.00 at that time.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) was raised to Buy from Hold at Goldman Sachs on June 29. Nokia is now past the Alcatel-Lucent transition, but still has a long way to go before the companies are fully integrated. The networking and advanced communications equipment outfit has a clean post-merger balance sheet and is valued cheaply despite European post-Brexit troubles. Nokia closed up 3.3% at $5.54 on Wednesday and was trading up 1.1% at $5.61 after the upgrade. Nokia has a consensus analyst price target of $7.04 and has a 52-week range of $5.01 to $7.63.

Vascular Biogenics Ltd. (NASDAQ: VBLT) was initiated with a Buy rating at H.C. Wainwright on June 28 with a whopping $11.00 price target. This stock was trading at $3.95 prior to the call, and it was at $4.30 later on and then was trading north of $4.70. Vascular Bio targets cancer and immune-inflammatory diseases and is less than two years as a public company. Its 52-week range is $2.76 to $12.25. Just keep in mind that it recently raised $24 million in a direct registered offering of 4.36 million shares at a purchase price of $5.50 share – and the sales agent was Wainwright’s Rodman & Renshaw.

Yamana Gold, Inc. (NYSE: AUY) was raised to Outperform from Neutral and the price target was raised to $6.50 at Credit Suisse. This upgrade was from June 30, and was a day after Yamana shares rose by 5.6% to $5.22. Credit Suisse sees Yamana riding the gold leverage with opportunities to add underlying value. Yamana Gold has a consensus analyst price target of $5.12 and has a 52-week range of $1.38 to $5.38.

AU Optronics Corp. (NYSE: AUO) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse on June 29. AU Optronics’ prior closing price was $2.97, but even on Thursday this stock was up at $3.40. The upgrade was in part from a shift in the television market. AU’s consensus analyst price target was actually under the last seen share price at $3.10, and its 52-week range is $2.32 to $4.48.

Neurometrix Inc. (NASDAQ: NURO) was started with a Buy rating at Rodman & Renshaw on June 28, and the firm assigned a $4.50 price target versus its prior $1.73 closing price. Neurometrix was trading at $1.72 late in the week, but this company is so small that many private companies are worth more than it.

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