What happened Shares of MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) were trading up as much as 8% on Tuesday after the resort and casino operator was upgraded to outperform by a Wall Street analyst. MGM has a lot of moving parts right now, but the analyst believes the company is heading in the right direction. So what MGM and most other resort operators had a difficult time during the pandemic, but as business has returned, the company has gone on the offensive. It has announced four transactions in recent months, including a $1.6 billion deal to acquire the Cosmopolitan resort in Las Vegas from Blackstone. Image source: Getty Images. Credit Suisse Group analyst Benjamin Chaiken doesn't think the market is giving MGM enough credit for the "transformation" the business has accomplished, and he is upgrading the shares to outperform from neutral and raising his price target to $68 from $33. Chaiken calls MGM a cleaner, more simplified organization with an attractive capital structure, saying it is set up well to beat earnings expectations. The Cosmopolitan is designed for millennials, and should be a nice complement to MGM's existing Las Vegas properties, including the Bellagio and the Aria, which are designed to cater to the 40 and older crowd. Now what It has been a wild ride for MGM investors in recent years. The stock lost nearly 80% of its value in the early days of the pandemic, but has rallied more than 300% from those lows and is now up more than 50% year to date. But even after that climb, it is still trading nearly 30% below Chaiken's target price. If the analyst is right and MGM can turn its recent dealmaking into higher-than-expected earnings, the stock should have more room to run. Investors are betting on just that, sending the shares higher on Tuesday. 10 stocks we like better than MGM Resorts InternationalWhen our award-winning analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and MGM Resorts International wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of September 17, 2021 Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source