UPDATE: Goldman Sachs Upgrades Altera to Buy

Goldman Sachs has published a research report on Altera Corporation

and has upgraded the company from Neutral to Buy. In the report, Goldman Sachs writes, "We are upgrading Altera to Buy from Neutral as we see upside to the stock in 1H12 as shipments return to normalized levels post a significant inventory correction in 2H11. We believe the PLD industry was shipping about 15% below long-term trend exiting 2011, and should revert back to trend through 2012. Although we remain guarded on the pace of recovery for overall semi shipments and carrier capex in 2012, we believe Altera's fundamentals can outperform as a function of 1) greater exposure to wireless vs. wireline spending, 2) exposure to OEM customers such as Huawei that are gaining share, 3) continued share gains vs. Xilinx in 2012." Goldman Sachs has raised the price target from $37 to $44 on Altera, which is currently trading up $0.74 from Friday's $37.10 closing price.