Analyst Upgrades: Priceline, ImmunoGen, Horizon Pharma

Analysts are weighing in today on travel website Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), as well as biotechs ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) and Horizon Pharma PLC (NASDAQ:HZNP). Here's a quick roundup of today's bullish brokerage notes on PCLN, IMGN, and HZNP.

• PCLN received an upgrade to "buy" from "hold" at Stifel, which also underscored a $1,400 price target. As such, the shares are sitting more than 1% higher ahead of the bell -- though they remain 3.5% lower year-over-year, as of Monday's close at $1,149.83. The vast majority of brokerage firms are bullish toward Pricline Group Inc. Fourteen of 18 have given the stock a "buy" or better assessment, plus PCLN's consensus 12-month price target of $1,364 stands in territory not charted since last March, when the equity topped out at an all-time peak of $1,378.96.


• IMGN has been a technical beast in 2015, soaring nearly 40% year-to-date to trade at $8.52, recently helped by a licensing agreement with Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co. It looks like this momentum will continue today, with the shares pointed 3.3% higher in electronic trading, following a pair of positive analyst notes. Specifically, UBS bumped its price target to $9 from $7, while Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its opinion to "buy" and its price target to $12 from $9. Not everyone's so confident in ImmunoGen, Inc., however. Eight of 11 analysts still rate the security a "hold" or worse. Plus, over 13% of the stock's float is sold short, which would take three weeks to buy back, at typical daily trading levels. This could set up IMGN to rally on another round of upbeat brokerage attention and/or short-covering activity.


• Just a day after soaring 18.2% on M&A news, HZNP is pointed 1.9% higher in pre-market action after receiving no fewer than four price-target hikes. The most ambitious of the bunch was Brean Capital, which upped its price target by $6 to $33, and reiterated a "buy" opinion. Meanwhile, over at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), traders have been buying to open calls over puts at a breakneck speed. Horizon Pharma PLC's 50-day call/put volume ratio across this trio of exchanges is 7.36, which outranks nearly four-fifths of comparable readings from the past 12 months. Technically speaking, HZNP has doubled in value on a year-to-date basis, and closed yesterday at $25.78 after earlier notching a record high of $25.95.