Jefferies upgraded the equity to "buy" from "hold"
Snowflake Inc (NYSE:SNOW) stock is up 2.3% to trade at $151.60 ahead of the opening bell, after Jefferies upgraded the equity to "buy" from "hold," and hiked its price target to $200 from $125. The analyst cited the cloud computing company's "near flawless" multi-quarter execution and its strong fundamentals, adding that it's confident in SNOW's growth potential.
When we last covered Snowflake stock, it was due to a similar bull note from J.P. Morgan Securities. It looks like a shift in sentiment amongst the brokerage bunch is taking place, as 19 of 25 covering analysts now called the equity a "buy" or better, coming into today, while just six said "hold" or worse. Plus, the 12-month consensus target price of $200.71 is a 35.31% premium to last night's close.
If options traders change their tune, then even more tailwinds could appear for SNOW. This is per the equity's 50-day put/call volume ratio at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) of 0.80, which sits higher than 96% of readings from the last 12 months. In other words, while calls are still outnumbering puts on an overall basis, the latter are getting picked up at a much quicker-than-usual clip.
Snowflake has been underperforming the broader market. The equity sits 56.3% lower year-to-date, with most of this negative price action happening after an early March, post-earnings bear gap. SNOW went on to hit two record lows following a dismal May report. However, things are looking up, as the shares are set to snap a seven-month losing streak, already adding more than 16% in June.