Analysts Turn Their Attention to Sirius XM Radio Once Again

By Brandon Matthews

click to enlarge image

Shares of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) continued their winning streak Thursday on the heels of an S&P credit upgrade. The latest upgrade followed new coverage by Lazard Capital and Wunderlich Securities, each of which assigned a BUY rating to Sirius XM shares and an initial price target of $1.00. Shares of Sirius XM traded as high as .81, setting a new 52 week high on current fundamental performance rather than historical lows. As the stock continues to strengthen, short interest continues to plummet to historical company lows.

As Jim Goss of Barrington Research noted in Wednesday night’s Satwaves Radio interview, analysts are turning their attention to Sirius XM Radio once again, which validates the positions of analysts such as Goss. Independently, these analysts are all reaching similar conclusions which strengthens the bullish argument being made regarding Sirius XM.

As the eighty cent wall is breached, investors are setting their sights on the magical one dollar mark, which could conceivably prevent Sirius XM from performing a reverse stock split and re-qualify for this year’s Russell rebalancing, if it were to surpass and hold above that level.

As more and more Wall Street eyes are taking note of Sirius XM’s improving fundamentals, there remain two analysts that investors are anticipating might resume coverage of Sirius XM in the not too distant future. I’m referring of course to Mark Wienkes of Goldman Sachs and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch’s Jessica Reif Cohen. Positive resumption and comments from either of these respected media analysts could conceivably catapult shares of Sirius XM to much more respectable levels.

In the meantime, shares of Sirius XM Radio seem to be a port in a storm, as the equity was trading up nearly 7 1/2% Thursday as the major market indices continue to lose ground.

Position: Long SIRI