In addition to a nice assortment of positive press over the past week, Sony executives had another reason to smile today.
The company's stock rose 3.7% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, closing at 4,760 yen (about $39.79). The recovery may be attributed to a forceful memo to investors from Morgan Stanley analyst Masahiro Ono, who confidently raised Sony's rating from "equal-weight" to "overweight," and increased its 12-month price target 300 yen to 5,900 yen (about $49).
The rebound made up for the 3.6% drop Sony suffered last month , perhaps due in part to a pair of concerned analysts who downgraded the stock. One analyst cited reports of PS3 malfunctions at the Tokyo Game Show, which Sony quickly blasted as being inaccurate.
Another contributor to the one-day fall may have been Sony's recall of approximately 8 million lithium-ion laptop batteries. And almost at the exact same time, the company drastically cut the number of PS3s available for its U.S. and Japanese launches in November, and delayed the console's release in Europe until March 2007.
But now those shares are stabilized, and Sony may have just switched to the fastlane for the upcoming holiday season.