Tech firms were in the brokers’ good books on Thursday, with several receiving upgrades.
Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) beat Wall Street profit expectations last quarter, on the back of greater-than-expected microchip sales.
The technology firm also issued an upbeat outlook for the current quarter, prompting a series of stock price upgrades from several brokers.
Credit Suisse raised its target price by US$3 to US$70, RBS Capital upped its target to US$59 from US$55, while both Pacific Crest and Stifel Nicolaus moved their stock price targets to US$67 from US$59.
Despite seeing a sharp drop-off in earnings during the second half, tech giant Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) was also in favour with Pacific Crest, which moved the stock up slightly to US$38 from US$37.
And Medidata Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:MDSO) was another technology to get the brokers’ seal of approval on Thursday.
Wells Fargo particularly liked the look of the stock, upgrading it to ‘outperform’ from ‘market perform’, as well as raising the stock valuation to US$52-US$55 from US$47-US$51.
Elsewhere, research firm Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co raised its target price for online shopping platform eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) to US$32 from US$29.
The ecommerce specialist raised revenue and profit forecasts yesterday, as it said efforts to bring in new shoppers were starting to pay off after its split from PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) last year.
Credit Suisse raised its stock target for food giant Kellogg Company (NYSE:K) to US$94 from US$86.
The Swiss bank has previously said that it felt the stock was undervalued, and saw potential for decent earnings per share growth.