What happened
Shares of Nutanix (NTNX +4.18%), a hybrid cloud-computing platform company, popped 23.1% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, after the company's stock received an analyst upgrade.
So what
Nutanix's share price has been highly volatile over the past year, but the latest hike was the result of Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty upgrading the company's stock from equal-weight to overweight and raising its price target slightly from $57 to $58.
Image source: Getty Images.
Part of Huberty's optimism for Nutanix comes from the fact that the company is expanding its cloud-computing software services and not just relying on its hardware products.
Nutanix's stock had already gained about 8% in January before Huberty's upgrade, but the share price jumped to a 24% gain for the month once she published the investor note.
Check out the latest Nutanix earnings call transcript.
Now what
Shares of Nutanix have been relatively flat so far this month -- they're up about 1% as of this writing -- but that could change once the company reports its second-quarter 2019 results on Feb. 28. Nutanix's management is expecting revenue in the range of $325 million to $335 million, which would be an increase of 15% at the midpoint compared to the year-ago quarter. With Nutanix's share price seemingly on a perpetual roller coaster, investors should expect more volatility when the company releases its quarterly results later this month.
