While Fools should generally take the opinion of Wall Street with a grain of salt, it's not a bad idea to take a look at particularly stock-shaking analyst upgrades and downgrades -- just in case their reasoning behind the call makes sense.
What: Shares of BlackBerry (BB -9.51%) pulled out of their downward spiral on Tuesday after Deutsche Bank upgraded the embattled smartphone maker from sell to hold.
So what: Along with the upgrade, analyst Brian Modoff reiterated his price target of $6, representing about 8% worth of downside to yesterday's close. While Modoff isn't exactly thrilled with BlackBerry's appreciation prospects, he believes that new CEO John Chen is particularly well suited for the difficult job ahead.
Now what: Deutsche still sees BlackBerry as a rather speculative situation. "The investment universe is filled with stories of brilliant managers being outdone by businesses with terrible economics and this is a high risk situation by any measure," Deutsche noted. "It is with this sentiment, that we remain cautious on the prospects of a complete turnaround similar to that of Mr. Chen's old firm, Sybase; however we think some value can be salvaged from Blackberry and we believe that Mr. Chen could provide that strategic direction." Given the gale force competitive headwinds facing Chen, however, I wouldn't bet too much on a triumphant turnaround.
