The Most Accurate Twitter Analyst Says It's Time To Buy
Part of the bump can be attributed to analyst Robert Peck of SunTrust upgrading Twitter from neutral to a buy with a $45 price target. Even though investors have been dumping the stock based on fears that monthly active users (MAUs) aren't growing quickly enough, Peck says that's not a problem. Twitter will never be as big as Facebook, he says, but that's not cause for concern:
One of the common comments we hear from investors is "with Twitter's MAU growth slowing, Twitter will never be as big as Facebook" (FB, Buy, $72). While that may be true, we ask, "does Twitter need to be as big as Facebook for the stock to work?" Based on our calculations, we believe one can justify buying the stock at these levels solely predicated on Twitter continuing to narrow the 50% monetization gap to Facebook, while still assuming user growth deceleration.
Peck also says Twitter has solidified itself as "one of the few platforms of the internet," meaning it is a stable just like Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.
We are upgrading Twitter from Neutral to Buy with a $45 year end 2014 target. We believe Twitter is one of the few Platforms of the Internet (Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn) that has a long runway in its core business (owning the "Interest Graph"). Platforms of this scale are unique assets that provide interesting optionality over time.
Peck's call carries a lot of weight. He was the analyst who put a $50 price target on Twitter before the IPO. He was also one of the first analysts to downgrade the stock in December after it finished its monster run right after the IPO.