AsiaInfo Holdings (ASIA) Upgraded to Conviction Buy at Goldman Sachs, Stocks Shoots Up 10%

One of our old Chinese holdings that for reasons unclear to me has suffered a bloodbath, AsiaInfo Holdings (ASIA) is up 10% in early trading on a Goldman Sachs upgrade.

• Goldman Sachs upgrades AsiaInfo Holdings (Nasdaq: ASIA) from Neutral to Buy and added the stock to their Conviction Buy list. The firm set a $31 price target.
• The firm said the company should see 20% year-over-year growth, continued market share gains, increasing cross selling opportunities, an improving competitive environment, and could benefit from potential USD/RMB depreciation in 2010-2011.

If memory serves, Goldman downgraded the stock which put it into a tailspin in the first place.  Must be nice to be able to move a stock whichever direction you need....

With today's move, the stock is back over the 50 day moving average which I've been waiting on to add the name back to the portfolio.  Unfortunately the god-like hand of Goldman has also created a gap up in the chart.  Doesn't mean it needs to fill anytime soon but I would of much preferred a gradual move up, rather than what happened today.  The stock was also very strong last Thursday in a bad tape - I remember because it stuck out like a sore thumb Thursday AM - which leads me to believe Goldman's traders / "best clients" were (allegedly) loading up on the stock.  Errr.. not that anything like that ever happens on Wall Street with the Chinese walls between the trading desk and research desks... yep.  [Aug 27, 2009: Goldman Sachs Trading Huddles]  Whatever happened to the SEC investigations of the "trading huddles" again?  Man, those lobbyists are impressive.... they can make almost any 'problem' disappear.

AsiaInfo Holdings, Inc. provides telecommunications software solutions, and information technology (IT) security products and services for telecommunications service providers, as well as to other major enterprises in China.

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