Analyst Picks & Pans November 30, 2009, 11:39AM EST

Stock Picks: Apple, eBay, U.S. Bancorp

Plus Wall Street analyst opinions on American Eagle Outfitters and Sonic Corp.

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Kaufman Bros. rates buy

Apple Inc. appears to have done well over the Thanksgiving weekend even without steep discounting and despite the release of Windows 7 -- a testament to the resilience of its products, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said on Nov. 30 .

Wu said in-the-field checks revealed strong foot traffic at Apple stores even if Black Friday discounts were a "modest" 4% to 10% on a limited set of products. The blockbuster iPhone was not on sale.

Third-party retailers that sell Apple products were more promotional. Discounts at retailers including Best Buy (BBY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Wal-Mart (WMT), and Target (TGT) were as much as 20% compared to 11% to 13% in prior years. Some included gift cards of $50 to $150.

Apple's popularity also is remarkable given that its Mac computers sell at two to three times the price of PCs, he said. Apple has done well given competitive pressure from Windows users who are upgrading to Windows 7.

Wu said it looks like new iMacs and MacBooks are out of stock at certain retailers or in limited supply -- a good sign going into the holiday season. As such, Wu said his sales forecast of 2.9 million Macs in the quarter -- already higher than what other Apple analysts are expecting on average -- is "likely conservative."

He said the release of the Snow Leopard operating system, new iPods and desktop Macs and a potential new product is expected boost sales in coming quarters.

Ebay Inc. (EBAY)

Standard & Poor's Equity Research reiterates buy

"Cyber Monday" marks the unofficial beginning of the online holiday shopping season on Nov. 30. S&P equity analyst Scott Kessler said in a Nov. 30 note that Shop.org indicates some 97 million Americans plan to shop via the Internet on Nov. 30, up from 85 million last year.

Kessler said he expects eBay's eBay.com and PayPal units to fare well in the online shopping season, as "they will benefit this holiday season from the continuing migration of shoppers and buying to digital platforms, more creative and effective marketing and promotional activity, a better focus on consumers and users, and strengthened relationships with merchants".

The analyst kept his 12-month price target of $26.

U.S. Bancorp (USB)

RW Baird upgrades to outperform from neutral; raises price target

U.S. Bancorp's stock price makes it an attractive buy for investors, RW Baird analyst David George said on Nov. 30 as he upgraded the shares to the firm's highest investment rating. George also boosted his stock price target by $4 to $29.

U.S. Bancorp shares have slipped 10% since mid-October.

"USB shares trade at what we view as a deserved premium to other banks on our estimates of normalized earnings," George wrote in a note to investors. "Despite this premium, the stock trades at a discount to peers on consensus 2011 EPS estimates, likely due to our view that USB will achieve normalized EPS faster than peers given the companys lower-risk loan book and high pre-provision returns on capital."

The Minneapolis bank is buying small banks, adding to its earnings potential, George said, and increasing its market share through the downturn. He also expects it to be among the first of the big regional banks to raise its dividend.