Shares of semiconductor equipment maker FormFactor (FORM) are up 72 cents, or 8.4%, at $9.27 after Stifel Nicolaus analyst Patrick Ho today raised his rating on the stock to Buy from Hold, with a $12 price target, writing that company’s recent performance at Stifel’s recent tech conference suggests to him the company has “set the operating model back on track.” The key issue for the company, argues Ho, is for FormFactor to win back market share in tools for DRAM production.

Longer term, the company could gain more of a presence in the market for tools to develop NAND flash memory chips and system-on-a-chip designs, he argues.

FormFactor appointed a new CEO, Thomas St. Dennis, last September, and the initial quarters under his tenure have shown “some hiccups,” writes Ho, and so “execution” going forward is the key factor in whether the first half of this year is the bottom for the company’s results, which he think it may well be.

Ho’s price target is based on a multiple of 10 times projected pro-forma “normalized” EPS of $1.20 and a price-to-book multiple of 1.5 times.

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Woah — Citigroup analyst Jim Suva today raised his rating on Research in Motion (RIMM) to Buy from Sell, without passing through Neutral, and set an $80 price target, writing that Nokia’s (NOK) deal with Microsoft (MSFT) should start to benefit RIM as carriers flip their promotion dollars to RIM.
Suva’s [...]

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Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan today raised his price target on shares of Sirius XM (SIRI) to $2 from $1.75, and reiterated a Buy rating, writing that “normalized” vehicle replacement rates come 2015, as well as “superior cost control” can help the company offset competitive pressure from Internet radio pioneer [...]

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Gleacher & Co. analyst Doug Freedman today raised his rating on shares of Micron Technology (MU) and of SanDisk (SNDK) to Buy from Neutral, writing that memory chip trends are improving for both companies: price cuts are abating in DRAM memory, affecting Micron, and NAND flash demand growth is gathering [...]

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Sorry, folks, somehow, this one just slipped through the cracks: Susquehanna analyst Chris Caso today raised his rating on shares of Nvidia (NVDA) to Neutral from Negative, while upgrading his price target to $23 from $9, writing that his call on the stock has been “completely wrong, as we underestimated [...]

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Signal Hill analyst Richard Baldry today raised his rating on shares of Salesforce.com (CRM) to Buy from Hold, citing potential upside in the shares to $165 or $170.
CRM shares are up $3.57, or 3%, today at $127.54.
Baldry thinks Salesforce “dominates” the software-as-a-service sector, and writes that “recent media analysis pointing [...]

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BMO Capital analyst Ambrish Srivastava today raised his rating on Intel (INTC) to Outperform from Market Perform, writing “Going out of business it is not.” paraphrasing Yoda. He assigned a $27 price target.
Srivastava writes that Intel sports a multiple of 5 times enterprise value versus Ebitda, a multiple seen during [...]

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Shares of Symantec (SYMC) are up 67 cents, almost 4%, at $18.19 after Deutsche Bank software analyst Todd Raker today raised his rating on the stock to Buy from Hold, writing that improved profitability in the company’s consumer PC anti-virus products, along with better sales of its SSL security offering, [...]

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Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes today raised his price target on Apple (AAPL) to $420 from $390, and reiterated an Overweight rating on the stock, arguing that the company’s “FaceTime” video conferencing capability will have network effects that should enhance sales of iOS devices and Macs.
Apple will have 200 million [...]

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Nomura Securities analyst Romit Shah today raised his rating on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to Buy from Neutral, arguing the Street is wrong in expecting zero growth in revenue next year, especially since AMD could wrest control of Apple’s (AAPL) Macbook Air laptop from Intel (INTC).
It would be the first [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily