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 upgrades and downgrades -- just in case their reasoning behind the call makes sense.
What: Shares of Hasbro (HAS -0.09%) gained nearly 1% today after Monness Crespi Hardt upgraded the toy maker from neutral to buy.
So what: Along with the upgrade, analyst Jim Chartier planted a price target of $60 on the stock, representing about 21% worth of upside to yesterday's close. While value investors might be turned off by yesterday's 5% earnings-related pop, Chartier believes that there's plenty of room to run given Hasbro's clearly positive earnings and sales trajectory.
Now what: Monness Crespi expects Hasbro to post high-single-digit top-line growth over the next two years and thinks it could possibly earn more than $4 per share in 2015 and close to $5 in 2017. "We expect growth in the Girls segment, driven by continued momentum in My Little Pony, the 2014 relaunch of Littlest Pet Shop and growth in Nerf Rebelle," noted Monness Crespi. "Margin expansion will be driven by the company's cost saving initiative (another $52-$55 million will be realized after 2013), leverage on emerging market sales growth and a mix shift toward entertainment and licensing revenue." When you combine those clearly visible growth prospects with the stock's still-reasonable price-to-cash flow of 10, I'd agree that Hasbro's risk/reward trade-off looks attractive.
