On Monday, Elastic (NYSE: ESTC) stock got a boost in advance of its looming quarterly earnings report. An analyst reiterated his bullish take on the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered business software specialist, and the market reacted in kind. Investors pushed the stock’s price up by 1.7%, a figure that contrasted favorably with the 0.3% decline of the benchmark S&P 500 index.
Bullish pundit view reiterated
That day, Rosenblatt’s Blair Abernathy published a fresh research note on Elastic. In the analysis, he reiterated his buy recommendation on the AI stock, and his $136 per-share price target. This anticipates growth of almost 27% from the latest closing price.
Elastic is currently gearing up to release its first quarter of fiscal 2025 fundamentals this Thursday after market close. Abernathy wrote that he expects the company to perform in line with estimates, “as we believe that this past quarter it continues to grapple with elongated enterprise selling cycles, budget scrutiny around digital transformation program spending, and small and mid-sized business segment weakness.”
That sounds like it might be a negative, but then again, the analyst is modeling double-digit (28%) revenue growth for the company’s Elastic Cloud offering, which isn’t far from the 32% of the fourth quarter.
Top-line growth expectations
In his analysis, Abernathy also pointed out that Elastic has seen a pullback from the optimization efforts of its clients. Instead, those customers were more focused on factors like costs, operational efficiency, and tool consolidation.
Collectively, prognosticators tracking Elastic stock are expecting the company to report 17% year-over-year growth in revenue, although they’re modeling flat bottom-line movement — net income per share is expected to match that of the year-ago quarter, at $0.25.
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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Elastic. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Why Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Elastic Was a Winner Today was originally published by The Motley Fool
