There are stocks and then there are “meme stocks.” Apparently, they are back. Welcome to the world of “stonks” all over again.

The bull market rages on. Many stocks have pulled back from their post-election highs, but the Dow hit a record high closing price and the S&P 500 itself is within 1% of its all-time high. Now that the election is over and with a new regime taking over and many changes coming, many investors and traders are looking for new ideas for how to be positioned ahead of 2025. This is where the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations can be come into play.

Most “Buy” and “Outperform” ratings come with an implied upside of 10% or more in Blue Chip stocks. So, what happens when investors see analysts calling for upside of 50%, 100% or even more? Well, that’s when you know you are looking in the realm of very speculative stocks.

Tactical Bulls searches the daily flow of Wall Street analyst calls covering the upgrades and downgrades to find fresh and new ideas. These analyst calls can be a reliable source for finding some hidden gems that might have otherwise been overlooked or missed. When an analyst has 50% or even 100% upside it is rarely in S&P 500 or Dow companies like Blue Chips.

Tactical Bulls always reminds investors and its readers that no single analyst report should ever be the sole basis to buy or sell a stock. That decision to buy or sell, or hold or short sell, is up to each investor and the decision should be made with a financial advisor. And that warning should be magnified in such speculative stocks. And when you get into “stocks that can double” it’s time to get some serious help before (or even if) any investment decision is made.

In the week of November 22, 2024, Tactical Bulls tacked more than a dozen analyst calls calling for 50%, 100% or more upside — but after screening out companies based on domiciles and other issues there were 9 stocks that analysts were predicting the share prices to double. They are all highly speculative companies, and it should go without saying that these have much more risk than Blue Chip stocks. It also needs to be pointed out that analysts can be wrong and sometimes the developments just do not come to fruition. Some, or all, may not live up to such lofty expectations.

DISCLAIMER & NOTICES

When investors see implied upside to price targets of 50%, 75% or even 100% then it should automatically be assumed that these are covering highly-speculative stocks. These should each absolutely be viewed with a very skeptical eye compared to other research reports. They are also only likely to be appropriate for the most aggressive investors and speculators in trading.

All formal analyst ratings and price targets are from the outside brokerage and investment banking firms mentioned. Tactical Bulls does not have opinions on these speculative stocks. Tactical Bulls also has no formal price targets of its own on any of these stocks. Any recommendations that come with Buy and Outperform ratings like this are from each firm mentioned and they are not necessarily the opinion of Tactical Bulls.

If you would like to track how prior calls have panned out in the 50%, 100% and higher price predictions from outside analysts, here is a similar view of 7 stocks published with 50% to 100% upside calls the weekend ahead of the election.

9 STOCKS ANALYSTS SAY CAN DOUBLE

Aclaris Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACRS) rose 53% to $3.14 after Biosion announced and exclusive global license agreement and after pricing 35.5+ million shares at $2.25 per in a secondary offering. Aclaris was raised to Buy from Neutral with $8 target at BTIG on November 19. It was also raised to Overweight from Neutral and its price target was raised to $13 from $3 at Piper Sandler on November 19. Jefferies raised its rating on Aclaris to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $7 from $2 in its November 19 call. Aclaris rose another 46% to $4.59 on November 19, after rising 53% the prior day. Its stock closed out Friday down 12% at $3.80.

Airship AI Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AISP) was started with a Buy rating and assigned a $6.00 price target (versus a $3.07 prior close) at Benchmark on November 15. By November 19 it was back down to $2.72 with a mere $79 million market cap. Airship AI is into AI-driven video, sensor, and data management surveillance platform used for government and commercial uses. The company is tiny but already has collaborations with U.S. Department of Defense agencies (Navy, Army, and Air Force). Its Outpost AI is built on the NVIDIA Jetson platform. Airship AI closed out the week at $2.44.

Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMLX) was raised from Neutral to Outperform had its price target raised to $11 from $3 (versus $4.76 close) at Baird on November 18. Its leading asset is avexitide, a GLP-1 receptor antagonist with FDA Breakthrough Therapy and Orphan Drug Designations to treat post-bariatric hypoglycemia. Amylyx rose over 11% to $5.30 on that first day of the call and on Friday it closed the week out at $5.27.

Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE: ACHR) was initiated at Buy with $11 price target (versus $4.41 close) at Needham on November 19. This was in a dual call on air taxis but Archer was given the more favorable view. This stock closed up 16% at $5.13 on the first day of the call, with 33+ million shares being almost triple the normal volume. It closed out the week with a 4.5% gain to $6.04 on Friday.

Duos Technologies Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: DUOT) saw some excitement this last week when it signed a $42 million asset management agreement with Fortress Investment Group for 850MW of power generation assets. It will deploy and operate a fleet of mobile gas turbines being acquired by funds managed by Fortress’ affiliates and that $42 million is spread over a two-year period. Northland Securities already had an Outperform rating but raised its target price to $10.00 from $5.50 after the news. Duos Technology Group shares closed down 6% at $4.58 on Friday but its shares had surged to over $6.00 on 10x normal trading volume mid-week on the news release. This is a tiny company with a mere $37 million market capitalization and it has only seen $7.35 million in revenues over the last 12-month period.

iHeartMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: IHRT) was reiterated as Buy and its price target was raised to $5 from $3 at Guggenheim on November 19. This was a clean-up call after adjusting for its recent earnings and reversed the same call from earlier in 2024 where the firm had lowered its target to $3 from $5 at that time. iHeartMedia closed at $2.22 ahead of the call. iHeartMedia only closed up 6.7% at $2.37 on the first day but the 1.4 million shares trading hands that day was nearly double the average volume. The stock closed out the week at $2.40.

Inhibikase Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: IKT) was initiated with a Buy rating and assigned an $8 price target (versus $2.77 prior close) at Jefferies on November 8. The stock reported earnings a few days later and the stock had fallen to $2.00 on last look. Whether that Jefferies call was updated after it posted a loss at -$0.65 EPS had not been seen on last look. Earnings may not be a be factor at this pre-revenue and late-stage clinical trials, but Inhibikase has shown that it received transformative financing worth up to $275 million from top-tier institutional healthcare investors and that its IkT-001Pro trial has moved into a late-stage clinical trial program targeting pulmonary arterial hypertension. Inhibikase closed out the week at $2.31.

Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG) goes very much against the grain here because it has so far been a deemed a Trump-loser of a stock. After all, hydrogen and fuel cell products are even farther out from real introduction than the current EV market. Most analysts have either downgraded the ratings or significantly slashed the targets. Still, the target cut at HC Wainwright (with a Buy rating) was down to $5 from $18 on November 19. Another warning here is that this was the highest target remaining despite the severity of the drop. This was a $2.52 stock on election day, and it was down to $1.92 by November 19. Plug Power closed out the week at $1.92 as well.

PowerFleet, Inc. (NASDAQ: AIOT) is a tracking technology company that tracks trucks, buses, containers, trailers and other assets. Its shares closed up 7% at $7.11 on Friday, but this was a $6.00 earlier in the week. Northland Capital Markets gave a positive call by raising its target price to $10 from $8, but the “call to double” was on the same day from a competing firm. Barrington Research reiterated its Outperform rating and raised its price target from $10 to $15 in that call.