Snapchat finally has its first 'buy' rating from Wall Street

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evan spiegel snapchat

Richard Drew/AP

Snapchat co-founders Bobby Murphy, left, and CEO Evan Spiegel ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange as the company celebrates its IPO, Thursday, March 2, 2017

Several Wall Street analysts advised investors to either hold or sell Snap Inc. shares after the company went public on March 3.

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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.

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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.

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Get the latest Snap stock price here.

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