What happened
Shares of SailPoint Technologies Holdings (SAIL), which makes identity and access management software, spiked today after the tech stock received an upgrade and a new price target.
SailPoint's stock jumped by as much as 16.7% in this morning's trading and was up 12.1% as of 11:22 a.m. EDT.
So what
Morgan Stanley analyst Hamza Fodderwala upgraded SailPoint's stock from equal weight to overweight today and set a new price target of $50, up from the previous $23.
Fodderwala is optimistic about SailPoint because he believes that the company is a leader in the identity and access management market and that it has a total addressable market of $34 billion in this space.
Identity and access management has become increasingly important as companies look to software to manage their employee log-ins and data access. And with more employees working from home than ever before because of the pandemic, these services are quickly becoming essential for businesses.
Now what
SailPoint's stock jump today puts the company's share price up 88% since the beginning of this year. Investors have favored the tech sector since the beginning of the pandemic, and SailPoint's stock has likely risen, in part, as investors take notice that the company's services are in increasing demand. Long-term investors should keep in mind that broader pullbacks in tech stocks, like the one that happened in early September, could hurt SailPoint's shares in the short term.