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Fastly’s sales outlook for the first quarter and full year was higher than Wall Street estimates.
Dreamstime
Fastly
was surging Thursday as analysts upgraded the cloud computing company’s stock to Buy following solid quarterly results and a promising sales outlook.
D.A. Davidson analyst Rudy Kessinger upgraded shares of
Fastly
(ticker: FSLY) to Buy from Neutral and raised his 12-month price target on the stock to $17 from $8.50. Kessinger wrote in a research note that fourth-quarter results “beat all around” and cited gross margins exceeding expectations for the second quarter in a row as reasons for his upgrade.
Craig-Hallum analyst Jeff Van Rhee also upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold and raised his price target to $17 from $9.
“Network costs/capex [capital expenditure] are coming down, gross margins are rising and the company is back in beat-raise mode. We believe shares have put in a bottom and will rise as ’23 progresses,” Rhee wrote in a research note.
Shares of Fastly surged 20% Thursday to $16.60, which would be the stock’s highest closing price since May 2022, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock has climbed for four consecutive days, which is its best four day stretch since May 2020. Shares of Fastly have surged more than 100% this year.
Fastly reported fourth-quarter earnings after the closing bell Wednesday. The cloud computing company reported a loss of 8 cents a share on revenue of $119.3 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting a loss of 13 cents a share on sales of $115 million. Gross margins of 57% rose from last year’s 55.8%.
For the first quarter, the company expects sales in the range of $114 million to $117 million. That’s more than analysts’ expectations of $108.5 million. Fastly’s full-year revenue expectations of between $495 million to $505 million also were above Wall Street estimates of $454 million.
“Our first-quarter and full-year 2023 outlook reflect our continued ability to deliver strong top line growth via improved customer acquisition and expansion within our enterprise customers, driven in part by new and enhanced products,” Chief Financial Officer Ronald Kisling said on the company’s earnings call.
Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com
