Snapchat finally has its first 'buy' rating from Wall Street
Richard Drew/AP
But on Monday, James Cakmak, an analyst at the boutique equity research firm Monness, gave Snapchat's parent its first "buy" rating.
"We recognize we are potentially giving too much credit for unproven skills in building a business, rather than just a product, but we see more to Snap than many suggest," Cakmak wrote in a note on Monday.
"There is substantial execution risk, but we're prepared to give the benefit of the doubt at this stage knowing what we know about Snap, and knowing what we know about the efforts of competitors."
Snap raised $3.4 billion in the tech industry's largest initial public offering in two years. Investors had to weigh prospects that the disappearing-messaging app's advertising platform can live up to its high valuation.
Cakmak said Snap, which calls itself a camera company, can possibly replace the camera app, and added that the digital camera has seen little innovation since its invention in 1975.
Cakmak also said its competitors' margins have likely peaked and saw the company with the potential to grow its revenues seven times faster than its competitors. Through its licensing agreements, Snapchat does a better job of meeting publishers' needs that its peers, he added. Bitmoji, the set of emoji users can customize, is one area of Snapchat's user data that is currently underappreciated, he said.
Cakmak has a price target of $25 on Snap's stock, which gained 2% to nearly $20 in premarket trading on Monday. Shares plunged 11% last week towards the IPO price of $17 as traders loaded up on bets against the company. Short interest in the stock has surged to more than 30 million shares, making up about 15.4% of the shares available for trading, according to data provided by analytics firm S3 Partners.
Before Monday, Snap had no "buy" ratings, five "hold" ratings, and six "sells" according to Bloomberg.
Get the latest Snap stock price here.
- CEO says he tried to hire an AI researcher from Meta, and was told to 'come back to me when you have 10,000 H100 GPUs'
- We bought a house in Japan for $30,000. We'll have more land than we could afford in the US, and our kids will be more independent.
- Rumors Prince William is having an affair with Rose Hanbury are flooding social media again after Stephen Colbert waded into 'Katespiracy'
- COVID-19 vaccine can slash risk of post-infection heart failure by half, study finds
- Stock markets close higher in volatile trade ahead of key Fed policy meeting
- 10 Must do activities in Kodaikanal on your next trip
- Harnessing the benefits of weekly fasting: transforming your health inside out
- Citroen to supply 4,000 units of EV e-C3 to BluSmart Mobility in 12 months