THQ Upgraded, Shares BumpTHQ Upgraded, Shares Bump

Shares in publisher THQ have risen by 2.3 percent after American Technology Research analyst Paul-Jon McNealy raised his rating for the company from “Neutral” to “Buy” in advance of the PlayStation 3 hardware launch in Europe and based on the company’s summer line up of licensed games. “We wrote at the time of the downgrade that there had to be a change in valuation or a change in fundamentals for an upgrade, and we believe both have happened," the analyst wrote in a note to investors, as reported by the Reuters news agency. McNealy singled out Pixar titles such as movie license Ratatouille and a non-movie supported sequel to last year's Cars as likely to prove particularly successful for the company. He also pointed out that THQ’s strong links with Nickelodeon and other child friendly licenses made it a natural match for the increasingly large userbase of the Wii. Shares in the company rose 72 cents to $32.46 in Thursday afternoon trading on the Nasdaq stock market and closed as high as $32.60, currently rising to $32.70 at the time of press. McNealy had previously downgraded the company’s rating to Neutral last October after a 60 percent rise in stock prices in just four months.