While Fools should generally take the opinion of Wall Street with a grain of salt, it's not a bad idea to take a closer look at particularly stock-shaking analyst upgrades/downgrades -- just in case their reasoning behind the call makes sense.
What: Shares of Accuray (ARAY 2.30%) climbed 3% today after a JPMorgan analyst upgraded the robotic radiosurgery specialist from "underweight" to "neutral."
So what: Along with the upgrade, analyst Tycho Peterson reiterated his price target of $8 per share on the stock, representing about 17% worth of upside to yesterday's close. Peterson cited steadily improving orders for several of Accuray's recent offerings including the CyberKnife M6 and Tomotherapy H series, offering investors at least some visibility into the company's near-term growth prospects.
Now what: Don't expect the price momentum to slow any time soon.
"We expect the upcoming ASTRO conference, where the company will showcase new products and have customers provide initial feedback on the systems, to be a positive event for the company," wrote Peterson in a note to clients.
Of course, when you couple Accuray's still-very intense competitive environment with its red-hot stock price -- now up about 60% from its 52-week lows -- I'd wait for a wider margin of safety before making a long-term commitment.
