Notable Upgrades: Intel (INTC), Walt Disney (DIS), Sequenom (SQNM), Tesoro (TSO)

Analysts at Robert W. Baird are out with a report this morning upgrading shares of Intel Corporation (INTC) with an ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ rating. The firm raised its price target for the company to $38 from $33, noting the chipmaker‘s positioning for a potential tier-one smartphone ramp this second-half has improved versus firm’s assessment from a quarter ago.

On valuation metrics, Intel shares are currently priced at 13.17x this year’s forecasted earnings, compared to the industry’s 4.89x earnings multiple. Ticker has a forward P/E of 11.63 and t-12 price-to-sales ratio of 2.61. EPS for the same period is $2.33.

In the past 52 weeks, shares of Santa Clara, California-based company have traded between a low of $24.87 and a high of $35.59 and are now at $30.67.

Shares are down 7.60% year-over-year and 10.57% since the beginning of the year.
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Analysts at Piper Jaffray upgraded their rating on the shares of The Walt Disney Company (DIS). In a research note published on Thursday, the firm lifted the name with an ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ rating and set a 12-month base case estimate of $120 from $105 per share.

Currently there are 15 analysts that rate DIS a ‘Buy’, 15 rate it a ‘Hold’. Two analyst rate it a ‘Sell’. DIS has a median Wall Street price target of $109 with a high target of $134.
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Sequenom Inc. (SQNM) down 1.38% to $1.43 in late morning trading despite the company’s upgrade to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell’ this morning at Ladenburg Thalmann.
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Tesoro Corporation (TSO) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ by BofA/Merrill (BAC) analysts on Thursday.

TSO is currently printing a normal daily average trading volume with the issue trading 661K shares, compared to the average volume of 3.17 million. The stock began trading this morning at $83.61 to currently trade 4.98% higher from the prior days close of $82.19. On an intraday basis it has gotten as low as $83.04 and as high as $86.47.

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