What happened
For a second day in a row, shares of Plug Power (PLUG 2.39%) are running higher. The stock added 5.5% in early trading Thursday and was still up 3.7% at 1:40 p.m. EST, after tacking on 15% yesterday.
So what
As pointed out yesterday, Plug's third-quarter sales (80% higher than in the year-ago period) sparked a chorus of cheers on Wall Street, with no fewer than five separate analysts raising their price targets on the stock, to anywhere from $22 all the way up to $30 a share.
Today, the chorus got even louder when Canaccord Genuity Group joined in, reiterating a buy rating on Plug stock and assigning it a $25 price target, nearly twice the analyst's previous $13 target.
Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
In re-recommending Plug, Canaccord acknowledged that the stock is richly valued, reports TheFly.com. (Plug shares currently cost roughly 22 times trailing sales, and the company is not profitable.) But the financial services company sees a potential catalyst to the shares in the form of a third "pedestal" customer joining Amazon (AMZN +0.30%) and Walmart (WMT +0.06%) in ordering fuel-cell power systems from Plug.
Canaccord didn't say which company it thinks will be next to purchase power systems from Plug. And even signing Amazon and Walmart hasn't done much to reverse Plug Power's 23-year history of never earning a profit, so there can be no guarantee that signing a third mega-customer will make things any different.
Still, the analyst is probably right about one thing: If Plug announces another customer the size of Amazon or Walmart, the news will almost certainly move the stock higher.
