Monday's Tech Winners & Losers
Updated from 2:04 p.m. EDT with new stock prices
Tech stocks were modestly higher as companies such as
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
,
Nvidia
(NVDA) - Get Report
and
KLA-Tencor
(KLAC) - Get Report
saw analysts raise their ratings on the stocks.
Shares of Apple gained $2.81, or 1.9%, to $155.89 after an analyst at Thomas Weisel raised his rating on the stock to overweight from market weight and boosted his price target to $195 from $188. Apple's current valuation excessively discounts the company's long-term growth prospects, said analyst Doug Reid in a research note. Expectations for fiscal 2008 results have also been "recalibrated to achievable levels", said Reid, which means investors are less likely to be disappointed.
Motorola
( MOT) was up 16 cents, or 1.7%, to $9.83 after the company settled its proxy battle with billionaire investor Carl Icahn and said it
two allies of Icahn to its board.
Semiconductor equipment maker KLA-Tencor was up $2.64, or 6.6%, to $42.81 after an analyst at Citigroup raised the rating on the stock to buy from hold. Near-term business for the company is better than expected, and the depressed stock price offers a good opportunity for investors, said the analyst.
Nvidia added 45 cents, or 2.4%, to $19.23 after the stock was upgraded to buy from neutral by an analyst at American Technology Research. At current price levels, investors are overly discounting the longer-term concerns around the industry's growth and ignoring the potential for better-than-expected revenue growth in the second half of the year, the analyst wrote.
Comscore
(SCOR) - Get Report
, which offers data to help digital marketing, was up $2.12, or 10.2%, to $22.99 after an analyst at Jefferies raised his rating on the stock to buy from hold and put a $27 price target on the shares. The recent pullback makes the stock attractive again, said the analyst, even as ComScore is "on track" to deliver strong growth in fiscal 2008 based on new product launches and a growing subscriber base.
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
shed 66 cents, or 2.3%, to $27.70 following a weekend where
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
threatened to lower its bid and Yahoo! management, yet again,
$31-a-share unsolicited offer for the company, saying it undervalues Yahoo!, which also said it remains open to talks. Shares of Microsoft were up 2 cents to $29.18.