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 Ford Motor Company (F 0.69%) gained nearly 1% on Friday after Deutsche Bank upgraded the auto giant from hold to buy.
So what: Along with the bullish call, analyst Rod Lache boosted his price target to $19 (from $18.50), representing about 22% worth of upside to yesterday's close. So while momentum traders might be turned off by Ford's sluggish price action over the past several months, Lache's call could reflect a growing sense on Wall Street that its growth prospects are becoming too cheap to pass up.
Now what: According to Deutsche, Ford's risk to reward trade-off is rather attractive at this point. "[W]e now believe that Ford's new F150 will be significantly more cost competitive than we originally perceived (the aluminum body may only add $750-$800 cost, and there have been opportunities to save elsewhere in the vehicle)," said Lache. "This conclusion, combined with our favorable views of Ford's prospects in Europe and China, leave us increasingly confident that Ford is heading for a significant earnings inflection in 2015-2016." When you couple that upbeat view with Ford's cheapish forward P/E of 8, it's tough to disagree with Deutsche's bullishness.
