What happened
Shares of solar microinverter maker Enphase Energy (ENPH -5.56%) are up a strong 6.5% as of 11:30 a.m. EDT. You can probably thank Bank of America and J.P. Morgan for that.
So what
Yesterday, you see, analysts at investment bank J.P. Morgan raised their price target on Enphase stock by $12, predicting the stock will hit $92 a year from now. Enphase stock costs $88 right now.
Today, Bank of America is following up on its brother banker's bullish note with some positive commentary of its own, reports TheFly.com. Specifically, Bank of America is initiating coverage of Enphase stock with a buy rating (J.P. Morgan also says "buy," by the way). And BofA thinks Enphase stock is worth $93 per share.
Why is that? In addition to Enphase's well-known microinverter business, BofA says the company has a "substantially greater" opportunity in residential energy storage -- an opportunity the analyst believes is "critically underappreciated" by investors.
Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
For three straight years, Enphase's microinverter business struggled to grow its revenue, but that all turned around in 2019, when sales nearly doubled to $624 million, and Enphase recorded its first ever full-year profit. Despite the pandemic, the company has kept the growth going this year, with sales up 41% in the first half of 2020 and earnings up 61%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
If the analysts are correct and Enphase's opportunity in energy storage is "substantially greater" than in microinverters, this growth story may have only just begun.
