NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Altera Corp. are higher by 2.19% to $44.28 on heavy volume in late afternoon trading on Friday, as investors believe merger talks with Intel are not totally off of the table, Bloomberg reports. On Thursday it was reported that Intel had ceased talks with the semiconductor company regarding a possible acquisition, causing Altera's stock to fall on the day. Altera rejected Intel's $54 per share offer, Bloomberg said, adding that investors think a deal at that level is attractive and that the company can be pressured into reconsidering since at that price Altera would be valued at almost 23 times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization in the past year. "Altera's board is in the hot seat and Altera shareholders will likely press them to revisit their lofty expectations on a deal price," Albert Fried & Co. special situations and merger-arbitrage strategist Sachin Shah told Bloomberg. Shah said Altera's board "needs to act quickly before Intel decides to move on to another peer and is no longer interested in Altera." Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates ALTERA CORP as a Buy with a ratings score of B. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate ALTERA CORP (ALTR) a BUY. This is driven by some important positives, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, growth in earnings per share, revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and good cash flow from operations. Although no company is perfect, currently we do not see any significant weaknesses which are likely to detract from the generally positive outlook." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: The stock has not only risen over the past year, it has done so at a faster pace than the S&P 500, reflecting the earnings growth and other positive factors similar to those we have cited here. Turning our attention to the future direction of the stock, it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market. However, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year. ALTERA CORP has improved earnings per share by 16.1% 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. During the past fiscal year, ALTERA CORP increased its bottom line by earning $1.52 versus $1.36 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($1.65 versus $1.52). Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 10.1%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 5.6%. This growth in revenue appears to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, improving the earnings per share. The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.45, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Along with this, the company maintains a quick ratio of 5.14, which clearly demonstrates the ability to cover short-term cash needs. Net operating cash flow has increased to $150.78 million or 15.30% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, ALTERA CORP has also modestly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 7.37%. You can view the full analysis from the report here: ALTR Ratings Report Must Read: Warren Buffett's Top 25 Stocks for 2015
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