In midday trading, the company’s shares fell 5 percent to $22.09 a share. Even so, that’s up from late last month, when the Chicago company traded as low as $15.24 a share, or roughly half of what some investors paid on day one.

The company is like a student in high school who still needs to push in order to get accepted into an Ivy League school. Even though it’s likely a shoo-in — and it’s already gone public — there’s no leeway for senioritis.

Most of the analysts’ evaluations were concerned about risks, such as the company’s short operating history, the prospects for growth now that it has gotten so large and intense competition coming from peers like LivingSocial, Amazon and Google among many others.

“While much execution lies ahead in order to meet expectations, the opportunity is large and Groupon has competitive advantages,” according to Barclays Capital, which had a neutral rating and a price target of $27.

J.P. Morgan also gave Groupon a neutral rating, but set a lower price target of $24 a share because there was still a lot to do despite its first-mover advantage.

“As subscriber growth slows, we project a major profitability ramp for Groupon over the next two years. However, we believe this ramp is largely anticipated and its magnitude leaves little room for error in execution and operations at current levels,” the analyst wrote.

Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney had the harshest words, saying he was “waiting for a better deal.”

He attributed his neutral stance and $24 price target to the lack of success in the company’s new segments, such as real-time offers, vacation packages and physical goods. “That, we believe, could take significant time to prove out,” Mahaney explained.

Nearly all the analysts were also concerned about the upcoming expiration date for a lock-up period. Expected in May 2012, it would allow some early investors and employees to dump the stock.

In other words, we could see a lot of people cashing in their vouchers right as the offer expires.

Craig writes in a research note that he still thinks “long-term challenges remain” for Dell (DELL) and its business model.” But he notes that the stock is down 12% since November on skepticism around gross margin. “Low investor sentiment, high short interest, compressed valuation, possible enterprise refresh and likely positive EPS revisions position the shares for better performance in 2010,” he writes.

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Earlier this week, analysts at Citigroup (C) and CL King voiced their concerns about the company in the wake of another ugly quarter from carrier partner Sprint (S). Now Standard & Poor’s is doing so as well. In a note to investors today, analyst James Moorman whacked down his price target on the company’s shares to $10 from $12 and reiterated his “Strong Sell rating.

“We believe the upcoming holiday selling season will be very competitive for handset vendors and think Palm could see competitive pressures,” he wrote. “We believe the small price difference between the Pre handset (especially when on sale at third party vendors) and the new lower-end Pixie could limit Pixie sales and confuse consumers during the launch.”
 
Indeed. As I noted here last week the $99 price Sprint has set for the Pixi is identical to the Pre’s on Amazon (AMZN). And the Pre has a faster processor, a better screen, and Wi-Fi support as well.

Not the most desirable circumstances for heading into the holiday season.

“The sole driver of the increase in Apple’s price target is a higher valuation of the iPhone,” Wolf wrote. “Courtesy of network effects, the explosive growth of the iTunes App Store…should translate into a higher growth trajectory of iPhone sales going forward….By exploiting a commanding lead in the all-important smartphone applications market, the iPhone is in a position to chalk up share gains in this fast-growing market that could surprise everyone….In many respects, Apple and Amazon are in similar positions. Amazon holds a relatively small but growing share of the e-commerce market, which itself is small, but growing an order of magnitude faster than the physical retail market.”

Wolf admits that his latest forecast is “judgmental” in that it’s based on the premise that software, namely iPhone applications, will drive hardware, namely iPhone sales. But he explains that the premise does have a proven track record in markets characterized by increasing returns and network effects.

“We have upped the number of iPhones that will be sold in 2018, the final year in our model, from 67 million to 107 million,” Wolf added. “Our forecast has the phone capturing 20 percent share of the smartphone market in that year, up from 12.5 percent recently. We should note that the iPhone’s share of the worldwide market is already around 12.5 percent. So our forecast is by no means an aggressive one.”

No doubt about it, it’s a good time to be an Apple investor.

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It has not yet been given a price or a release date, but Palm’s forthcoming Pre handset continues to have a remarkably restorative effect on the company’s share price. It wasn’t so long ago that Palm shares were trading just above a dollar. Today, they’re hovering around $8.67, bouyed up by little more than the device’s Consumer Electronics Show debut, an uneventful media Webcast, some hyperbolic remarks from one of the company’s investors and the enthusiasm of a few bullish analysts. Among them, Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore and Jonathan Goldberg, who boosted their price target on Palm (PALM) to $12 from $10 today claiming that Palm will not only ship the device on schedule, but will follow it up with other form factors. “Since their earnings release last week, we have conducted a round of checks on Palm and remain confident in the potential for their new Pre smartphone to turnaround the company’s results,” the two wrote in a note. “The Pre timetable seems on track at least, and both carrier and developer interest remains high….We also confirmed earlier checks and vague hints on their recent call that the company is working on other form factors which we could see in the market sooner than expected.”

Quite a vote of confidence. Though to be fair, it’s not shared by everyone. Certainly, Needham analyst Charlie Wolf is looking askance at claims that the Pre will turn out to be Palm’s iPhone. “The stock appears fully valued even if the Pre turns into a stunning success,” he wrote in a recent research note. “To have management tell it, WebOS is the best thing since sliced bread and the Pre is a thing of beauty. Obviously, with the platform launch still weeks away, it’s impossible to challenge them.”

“Considering the worsening macro environment, Nortel’s challenged industry position, and concerns related to liquidity while the capital markets are basically closed, we think bankruptcy is a distinct possibility down the road,” Sue wrote in a note to investors. “The world moved on while Nortel was stuck in restructuring mode, and the lack of financial flexibility means Nortel has to rely on asset sales to fund future operations.”

More ugly news for Nortel (NT), which just announced layoffs and seems to be slipping closer and closer to the abyss each day.