NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Groupon are higher by 1.38% to $8.08 in afternoon trading Tuesday, after analysts at RBC Capital raised their price target on shares of the discount e-commerce marketplace to $8 from $7 with a "sector perform" rating. The firm said its higher price target is due to Groupon's better than expected fourth quarter earnings results from Friday. For the fourth quarter, Groupon posted earnings of 6 cents per share, higher than the 3 cents analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. Groupon said fourth quarter revenue came in at $925.4 million, also higher than the $908.6 million analysts predicted. Exclusive Report: Jim Cramer's Best Stocks for 2015 STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more. Chicago-based Groupon is a local e-commerce marketplace that connects merchants to consumers by offering goods and services at a discount. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates GROUPON INC as a Sell with a ratings score of D+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate GROUPON INC (GRPN) a SELL. This is driven by some concerns, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. Among the areas we feel are negative, one of the most important has been a generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: GRPN's stock share price has done very poorly compared to where it was a year ago: Despite any rallies, the net result is that it is down by 28.89%, which is also worse that the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Investors have so far failed to pay much attention to the earnings improvements the company has managed to achieve over the last quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now. The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Internet & Catalog Retail industry and the overall market, GROUPON INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500. 46.56% is the gross profit margin for GROUPON INC which we consider to be strong. Regardless of GRPN's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of 0.94% trails the industry average. Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 60.88% to $286.82 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, GROUPON INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 5.55%. GROUPON INC reported significant earnings per share improvement in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past year. We feel that this trend should continue. This trend suggests that the performance of the business is improving. During the past fiscal year, GROUPON INC continued to lose money by earning -$0.11 versus -$0.14 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($0.17 versus -$0.11). You can view the full analysis from the report here: GRPN Ratings Report STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more.
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