Shares of Snowflake surged more than 31% on Thursday, after third-quarter results beat analyst estimates on the top and bottom line. And analysts see even more gains in store. The sharp move higher puts the cloud-based data stock on pace for its best day ever. Snowflake executives on Wednesday upped their full-year product revenue forecast to $3.43 billion, or growth of 29%, compared to a previous estimate that called for $3.36 billion. SNOW YTD mountain Snowflake stock headed for its best day ever on Thursday. The company added on Wednesday that it plans to partner with the Amazon-backed artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy also noted that Snowflake could grow its business involving the federal government. Goldman analyst Kash Rangan reiterated a buy rating on Snowflake following its third-quarter results, and maintained his price target of $220 per share. Rangan’s forecast implies more than 70% upside from Wednesday’s $129.12 close. “Given the company’s strong competitive positioning, we continue to view Snowflake as well positioned to capitalize on a generational shift of data and analytics to the cloud, with strong secular tailwinds including cloud adoption, big data, AI/ML [artificial intelligence/machine learning], and secure data sharing which we expect will drive durable growth for the foreseeable future,” Rangan said. JPMorgan, others bullish too JPMorgan Chase analyst Mark Murphy maintained an overweight rating on Snowflake stock, but increased his price target to $185 per share. Murphy’s forecast implies more than 47% upside moving ahead. “We expect Snowflake to continue to grow revenue at a rapid scale,” Murphy said. “We believe the combination of alignment to secular trends like data growth and digital transformation, very rapid revenue growth at scale, and a solid, efficient business model makes Snowflake an exceptional asset among software companies.” Elsewhere, Bank of America analyst Brad Sills was encouraged that demand trends showed stark improvement in the third-quarter, and said he’s encouraged by the company’s efforts to broaden its data engineering and AI segments. The analyst reiterated his neutral rating on Snowflake stock but increased his price target to $185 per share from $160, equating to more than 43% upside moving forward. “We look for more material traction outside the core before concluding that Snowflake has widened the competitive moat from pure play and hyperscaler platforms,” Sills…
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