By Alan Wolf on Feb 22 2013 - 4:10pm

Best Buy Revisited

Pundits who’ve been betting against Best Buy may now be having second thoughts.

Forbes, which helped usher in the competitive sport of Best Buy bashing during Holiday 2011, posted a blog about two analyst upgrades that put the CE chain in a new light.

In their reassessments, Barclays’ Alan Rifkin and Stifel Nicolaus’ David Schick tick off a litany of positives, including:

• vendor support to offset Amazon;
• popular alternatives to Apple products;
• opportunities in e-commerce, smart appliances and real estate reduction, and;
•  “vastly improved” management under Hubert Joly.

Their last but certainly not least observation – increased demand for CE – bodes well for the entire electronics industry, as does a strong and healthy Best Buy.