24/7 Wall St.

This past week was a roller-coaster, and the 369 point gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday took the Dow and S&P 500 back to where they closed up only about 0.1% on average for the entire week. Despite post-terrorism and weaker European Central Bank news selling, what investors are proving over and over is that they want to buy strong stocks on weakness.

24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst upgrades and downgrades each day of the week. It turns out in the past week that there were many big analyst projections via upgrades, initiations and reiterated coverage with Buy and Outperform ratings in the key technology stocks. Some of these analyst calls even came with much more than 8% to 15% upside projections that you might see in Dow stocks.

Investors need to consider that many analyst reports do not materialize the way they were expected to, and some analyst calls simply have the wrong assumptions. 24/7 Wall St. has offered up nine stocks getting big analyst calls last week in technology sector for more aggressive investors. Links have been provided if these were covered more in-depth.

Avago Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: AVGO) surged after beating earnings, and pulled up acquisition target Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) along with it. Shares were up over $10 on the news and hit almost $147 at one point that day, only to close the week out at $147.56. Many analysts lifted targets handily: Merrill Lynch raised its price objective to $180; Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $160; Oppenheimer raised its target to $170; RBC raised its target to $155; Topeka raised its target to $153; and UBS raised its target to $185. 24/7 Wall St. has more details on analyst coverage.

HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) was given a very solid post-split endorsement from the independent research firm Argus on Thursday. The firm reiterated its Buy rating on HP, and the $16.00 price target implied close to 35% in total return if things pan out the way Argus is hoping. The firm sees higher PC market share and company efforts to keep the ship running tight potentially generating upside in sales last next year. Full details are available on that call.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) was raised to Strong Buy from Market Perform at Raymond James on Monday. What stood out here was that Microsoft was given a $62.00 price target, which compared to a prior $53.93 close. Microsoft shares closed out the week at $55.91. Microsoft has a consensus analyst price target of $56.16 and a 52-week range of $39.72 to $56.23. These are multi-year highs. Microsoft also recently was named as a top triple-play pick at Oppenheimer.

Mobileye N.V. (NYSE: MBLY) was started with a Buy rating at Evercore ISI on Wednesday. The stock was assigned a $68 price target versus a prior $43.46 closing price. Shares closed at $42.91 on Friday. Mobileye had a consensus analyst price target of close to $72.50 at the time ($72.10 by Friday) and has a 52-week trading range of $32.41 to $64.48. If Evercore’s call is right, this leaves an implied upside of well over 50%.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Alcatel-Lucent SA (NYSE: ALU) were both raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse on Wednesday. These stocks are merging and both are well off 52-week highs. They were covered in detail and all is set for Nokia to acquire Alcatel-Lucent now. Nokia’s ADSs closed at $7.41 against a 52-week range of $5.71 to $8.37 and Credit Suisse was giving both Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent an implied upside of more than 30% when converting from euros.

Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NYSE: PANW) was added to the Top Picks List at FBR Capital Markets on Friday, but what stood out here was that the price target was raised to $235 from $210. This was the highest price target on Wall Street by $10 at the time. Palo Alto closed out the week at $191.67 against a 52-week range of $112.22 to $200.55, and it has a consensus analyst price target of $207.44.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was started as Overweight and was assigned a $64 price target at Pacific Crest on Friday. Qualcomm had a prior closing price of $51.40 and shares went out at $52.34 on Friday. The mobile chip and processor giant has a consensus analyst price target of $63.82 and a 52-week range of $47.52 to $75.72. Unfortunately, Qualcomm hasn’t worked out very well at all for the bulls this year, and defending the stock has come with severe pain. Still, this positive call is at least at a time when the stock is closer to the bottom than a big upgrade at the top.

Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX) was raised to Outperform from Sector Perform and was given a $36.00 price target at RBC Capital Markets on Tuesday. Rackspace closed at $28.62. The consensus analyst price target is $39.00 and the 52-week range is $23.65 to $56.20. What stands out here about Rackspace is that the consensus target is even higher than this new target price of $36, but the stock is still down right at 50% from its 52-week high.

Zendesk Inc. (NYSE: ZEN) was reiterated as Buy at Canaccord Genuity on Tuesday. What stood out here was that it was still called a top small cap growth pick. They feel the stock needs a pause to catch its breath through year-end, but Zendesk’s quality growth that is inflecting to cash flow profitability should bring in new investors and should lead to stock price outperformance in 2016.