AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (ACRX) Upgraded to Buy: Here’s Why
AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (ACRX) could be a solid choice for investors given its recent upgrade to a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). This upgrade is essentially a reflection of an upward trend in earnings estimates — one of the most powerful forces impacting stock prices.

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The Zacks rating relies solely on a company’s changing earnings picture. It tracks EPS estimates for the current and following years from the sell-side analysts covering the stock through a consensus measure — the Zacks Consensus Estimate.
The power of a changing earnings picture in determining near-term stock price movements makes the Zacks rating system highly useful for individual investors, since it can be difficult to make decisions based on rating upgrades by Wall Street analysts. These are mostly driven by subjective factors that are hard to see and measure in real time.
Therefore, the Zacks rating upgrade for AcelRx Pharmaceuticals basically reflects positivity about its earnings outlook that could translate into buying pressure and an increase in its stock price.
Most Powerful Force Impacting Stock Prices
The change in a company’s future earnings potential, as reflected in earnings estimate revisions, has proven to be strongly correlated with the near-term price movement of its stock. That’s partly because of the influence of institutional investors that use earnings and earnings estimates for calculating the fair value of a company’s shares. An increase or decrease in earnings estimates in their valuation models simply results in higher or lower fair value for a stock, and institutional investors typically buy or sell it. Their bulk investment action then leads to price movement for the stock.
For AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, rising earnings estimates and the consequent rating upgrade fundamentally mean an improvement in the company’s underlying business. And investors’ appreciation of this improving business trend should push the stock higher.
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