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 DISH Network Corp. (DISH) gained 1% this morning after J.P. Morgan upgraded the pay-television company from neutral to overweight.
So what: Along with the upgrade, analyst Philip Cusick planted a price target of $72 on the stock, representing about 22% worth of upside to Friday's close. So while contrarian traders might be turned off by DISH's sharp climb over the past year, Cusick's call could reflect a sense on Wall Street that its growth prospects still aren't fully baked into the valuation.
Now what: According to J.P. Morgan, DISH's risk/reward trade-off is rather attractive at this point. "[W]e are hard pressed to see a scenario where the stock declines significantly, and see many areas that could drive shares higher," said Cusick. "In wireless, while we don't expect Dish to sell its spectrum, we also don't see the company actually building a stand-alone wireless network and find it most likely that Dish will partner with another carrier to light up its spectrum and possibly wholesale capacity and/or other spectrum." With DISH shares up about 60% from their 52-week lows and trading at a steep-ish forward P/E of 30, however, I'd wait for a wider margin of safety before buying into that bullishness.
