Hot Stocks to Watch Today

Investors remained guarded Tuesday while reflecting on Wall Street's now 5-year-old rally, soft economic data out of Asia, and mounting tensions in Ukraine.

After a quiet Monday, which saw just 6 million shares change hands (the third lowest-volume day of the year) and left all three benchmarks modestly lower, Tuesday's session was much the same.

Nonetheless, a number of companies were trending higher. Some moved up on company developments or industry news, while others jumped on earnings or upgrades.

Following are 12 of Tuesday's hot stocks to watch.

Today's Hot Stocks List

Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) shares rose nearly 7% to $538.74 Tuesday in intraday trading after Pacific Crest upgraded the stock to Outperform from Sector Perform and reiterated its $635 price target. That was welcome news to shareholders amid a 5.4% year-to-date decline. APPL has been out of favor for several months, and bearish short interest has surged a whopping 73.4% over the last two reporting periods to 26.4 million short shares sold. Worries are the smartphone market has become saturated. But recent data from com.Score shows Apple's iPhone business is still gaining market share. In the quarter ended December 2013, Apple's smartphone market share grew to 41.8%, up from 40.6% in the previous quarter.

Boyd Gaming Corp. (NYSE: BYD) shares got a boost after a 13D filing revealed hedge fund Elliott Associates has taken a 4.99% (or 5,380,000 share) stake in the Las Vegas gaming company. Shares climbed nearly 18% to $14 intraday on nearly five times its average daily volume.

Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS) shares rose 3.77% to $56.38 after reporting earnings and revenue in line with estimates. The sporting retailer posted Q4 profit of $138.6 million, or $1.11 a share, up from $129.7 million, or $1.03 a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $1.95 billion, up from $1.81 billion a year ago. Same-store sales increased 7.3% last quarter, boosting profit alongside strong merchandise margins.