24/7 Wall St.

With stocks at all-time highs and after the Dow rose more than 22% and the S&P 500 rose over 28% in 2019, many investors have yet to make many changes in the portfolios for what could be another solid 2020. The bull market is now well over 10 years old, China and the United States signed the phase-one trade accord, and global growth may see some rekindling while interest rates are expected to remain steady. There are of course still many risks in 2020, and it’s an election year, and the major indexes do look and feel overbought in the short term. The big question for investors at the start of 2020 is what to do with new money that needs to be invested without paying the “top-tick.”

This is a time where many investors are looking for some of the overlooked or undervalued companies as potential investments. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations each day. This ends up being hundreds of analyst calls each week. Many speculative stocks are mixed in with the major index and large companies in the research calls, and some of these offer major upside price targets that are well above the typical 8% or so implied upside when analysts give Buy and Outperform ratings on Dow Jones industrial or S&P 500 stocks.

This is where some of the overlooked or battered stocks come into play, and for some reason investors sometimes look for “cheap” to mean share prices under $10.00. After screening the weekly analyst calls, there were many stocks getting Buy and Outperform ratings with share prices under $10.00 during the week of January 17.

First and foremost, investors should not buy or sell a stock just because of one analyst rating. The other issue to consider is that if low-priced stock picks come with upside of 25%, 50%, or even 100% or more, then there is obviously much more risk than larger and more established companies. And with stocks having risen exponentially in this long bull market, some of these companies either have run into problems along the way or their path to becoming a public company was not typical.

There are many other risks to consider in speculative stocks that require much more research and attention than most companies that are already index leaders. Here are 10 stocks trading under $10.00 per share where analysts have issued the equivalent of Buy and Outperform ratings with massive upside potential for 2020.

Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN) was started with an Overweight rating and a $10 price target at Cantor Fitzgerald on January 16. The shares were only trading at $6.16 on Friday with a $383 million market cap. The firm is a timid bull here, noting that it was cautiously optimistic as a high-risk and high-reward scenario for the next year to year and a half.

The Compugen report calls for a larger biopharma player perhaps being more willing to form a partnership for its anti-tumor activity.

GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) is largely hated by the investing community and many people wonder how long there will continue to be actual GameStop stores. Its shares were above $5.50 shortly before earnings, but disappointing numbers took it to $4.75 by the end of the week. Wedbush decided to maintain its Outperform rating and $8 target price.

This call is not the consensus at all (consensus is a $4.45 target price) and the firm feels GameStop is turning the page on a disappointing quarter ahead of the key Xbox and PlayStation console refreshes coming this fall. To prove how hated this stock is, the last short interest of 62.7 million shares represented more than 15 days worth of trading volume.

Glu Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ: GLUU) was started as Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Markets on January 15. The call also included Zynga (see below) and the Glu Mobile target of $8 represented about 35% upside at the time. Glu closed at $6.17 as its shares remained firm, implying about 30% upside was still there.

KeyBanc sees Design Home, Covet Fashion, and Tap Sports Baseball leading the majority of its bookings and said its new Diner Dash Adventure is off to a strong start with three more expected releases ahead that can drive more interest and expand its portfolio that much more.

Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) traded up nearly 6% to $2.97 late on Friday and the trading volume was more than 50% above an average trading day. The driver here was that UBS upgraded the daily and ongoing deals website to Buy from Neutral with a $3.50 price target. That represents about 25% in implied upside and is more or less in-line with the consensus target price of $3.45.

Groupon has a 52-week range of $2.17 to $3.98. One driving force that had been in place since the end of 2019 was that MIG Capital had taken an activist investor stake and would make proposals regarding the company’s capitalization and operations, as well as its ownership structure and board composition. Groupon has also been the subject of M&A rumors not so long ago.

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Interpace Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ: IDXG) is in molecular diagnostics and other platforms and the company entered into an agreement to raise $20 million in a new preferred stock sale. The company also conducted a reverse split that took its shares higher. Before investors even look at the call, this is a mere $31 million stock. Oppenheimer reissued an Outperform rating on January 16 and its target price is now $17.00. That is more than double the current $8.11 share price that had been seen right before Friday’s closing bell.

Meet Group Inc. (NASDAQ: MEET) was named as the Bull of the Day at Zacks on January 14. This is a view that is fundamental and technical and Zacks noted that this stock is seemingly trading at a discount and its small-cap characteristic creates great upside potential. Shares previously closed at $5.30, with a consensus price target of $6.35. Its closing price was $5.77 and its market cap was $413 million at Friday’s close, with a 52-week range of $3.05 to $6.27.

Organigram Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: OGI) was one of the top stock market gainers back on Wednesday after the cannabis and cannabis-derived products seller posted more than stellar earnings. Many of these cannabis stocks have tried to recover over the past month, but in general the cannabis stock sector remains firmly down from its highs and many legalized marijuana investors have to feel burned over how much money has been lost in this sector from the highs in 2018 and 2019.

After earnings, Raymond James raised Organigram to Outperform from Market Perform in the firm’s Canadian-listed shares with a C$9 target price. The Toronto shares were trading at C$4.26 as of Friday’s closing price, implying that its shares could more than double and that would still be under its C$11.30 share price. Organigram’s U.S.-listed shares closed at $3.26 on Friday, compared with a 52-week high of $8.44.

RTI Surgical Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: RTIX) was rated as Overweight at Cantor Fitzgerald, but the firm raised its target price to $6 from $4 on January 17. This stock had traded over $4.50 in previous days, but that is after the shares surged from about $2.75 to the higher prices after RTI Surgical reached an agreement to sell its OEM business to Montagu Private Equity for a sum of $490 million.

The transaction is called to close in the first half of 2019 and will leave RTI Surgical as a pure-play spine company that is set to grow that business. With shares at $4.44 late on Friday, its market cap was just $327 million.

Synlogic Inc. (NASDAQ: SYBX) was reiterated as Outperform with a $14 target price (versus a $3.19 prior close) at Wedbush. The firm’s call is a sum of the parts valuation, and it is evaluating potential drug sales out to 2027. This stock is down from a 52-week high of $11.43, and note that it has only an $89 million market cap.

Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) was started with an Overweight rating and an $8.50 target price (versus a $6.77 prior close) at KeyBanc Capital Markets. Zynga previously had a consensus target price of $7.50, and its 52-week trading range is $4.21 to $6.81.

The analyst still sees mobile games as the fastest-growing segment within gaming and Zynga is said to be well positioned to keep building its game portfolio with expanding margins and additional M&A potential.

For those investors who wonder if stocks can keep surging in 2020, here is the path that can take the Dow to 32,000 in 2020.

We have also included six-month stock performance charts below from StockCharts.com.

Source: Stockcharts.com