NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- BlackBerry (BBRY) plunged on Wall Street's souring assessment of the smartphone maker following its earnings. Intel (INTC) - Get Report took a tumble as analysts downgraded Altera (ALTR) - Get Report, its potential buyout target. Analog Devices (ADI) - Get Report surged on an analyst upgrade and possible Apple (AAPL) - Get Report customer win.

BlackBerry plummeted 7% to close at $8.79 on a day when the broader markets advanced.

The smartphone maker was hit with a number of negative assessments from analysts a day after it reported its fourth-quarter earnings. Credit Suisse, which had the lowest price target of the group at $6 a share and an underperform rating, noted the company would continue to "burn cash" and its best alternative would be to break up its operations. Said Credit Suisse:

Given the inherent challenges in turning around the services stream, and subscale loss-making hardware business, we believe it would be best for the company to break up.

Other analysts, according to a Barron'sreport, also issued a downbeat assessment of BlackBerry's business. Nomura, which has a neutral rating and $9.70 price target, expressed concern BlackBerry's BES12 license sales would not substantially boost the company's revenue until the second half of its fiscal year and at a level that would yield $456 million in software revenue -- below the company's guidance of $500 million for fiscal year 2016.

Intel fell 1.7% to end the session at $31.46 while Altera dropped 3.5% to close at $42.82.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported Intel was in talks to acquire Altera, which at the time had a market cap of approximately $10.5 billion.

Several analysts, according to an Investor's Business Dailyreport, issued Altera downgrades including Morgan Stanley and CLSA. UBS analyst Stephen Chin, according to the publication, noted Altera's field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) chips, which are used in data centers, have been losing market share in the mid- and low-end FPGA markets over the recent years. 

If Intel ultimately acquires Altera, it would mark its largest acquisition to date.

Analog Devices surged 10.2% to end the day at $64.81.

The chip maker soared after Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight and increased the company's price target to $70 from $55.

In making these changes, Barclay's noted it believed Analog Devices had won a contract with Apple to put its 3-D touch feature technology into the iconic computer maker's upcoming iPhones and iPads, according to a MarketWatchreport.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.