Schaeffer's Trading Floor Blog

Analyst Upgrades: MercadoLibre, OpenTable, and Whole Foods Market

Analysts upwardly revised their ratings on MELI, OPEN, and WFM

by 8/3/2012 9:04 AM
Stocks quoted in this article:

Analysts are weighing in today on e-commerce issue MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ:MELI - 66.52), restaurant reservations site OpenTable, Inc. (NASDAQ:OPEN - 34.15), and grocery chain Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM - 92.91). Here's a quick roundup of today's bullish brokerage notes.

  • Following last night's quarterly earnings report, MELI today scored an upgrade to "overweight" from "neutral" at J.P. Morgan. The brokerage firm also raised its target on the stock to $100, implying expected upside of 50.3% to Thursday's close at $66.52. MELI is making some progress toward the century mark ahead of the bell, with the shares set to open nearly 15% higher at $76.45. However, the stock needs to keep climbing to make it back into positive territory for 2012, as MELI's year-to-date breakeven stands at $79.54.

  • After announcing its own second-quarter results, OPEN was upgraded to "outperform" from "perform" at Oppenheimer. The stock has surged 19.2% in electronic trading, but OPEN could lose some momentum around the round-number $40 area. This region is home to the equity's 10-week, 20-week, and 40-week moving averages, which have collaborated to keep a lid on OPEN's progress since June 2011. In the intervening months, the stock has managed just three weekly closes above this trio.

  • Morgan Stanley upwardly revised its opinion of WFM to "overweight" from "equal weight," sending the stock to a pre-market gain of 2.1%. The shares have already advanced 33.5% so far in 2012, easily outperforming the broader equities market. Since staging a bullish post-earnings gap on July 26, WFM has been consolidating its gains atop emerging support in the $92 region. Most analysts are already bullish on the organic grocer, as WFM sports 14 "buy" or better endorsements out of 23 total brokerage ratings.


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