EXCERPT Analysts almost hate to defend Ford these days. One standout is Morgan Stanley, which raised the stock to Overweight from Underweight, while raising its price target to $15 from $10.
What matters here is that this is not only a two-notch upgrade. This call removes the equivalent of a Sell rating, and the 50% jump in the price target implies an upside of almost 40%, before even taking Ford’s 5.5% dividend yield into consideration.
Driving this big upgrade were Ford’s low valuation, restructuring expectations and a strategic deployment that may halt years of the company underperforming. On the valuation side of the equation, Morgan Staley thinks that the Ford F-150 value could be more than Ford’s enterprise value. The firm also believes that sales estimates and expectations may have bottomed out.