What happened
After a New Year's hiccup on Monday, when it was down 2%, the stock of solar microinverter-maker Enphase Energy (ENPH 0.62%) was turning things around this morning, and was up 7.6% at 10:30 a.m. EST.
You can thank Goldman Sachs for that.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Late last night, the investment bank announced it is upgrading shares of Enphase Energy from neutral to buy, and drastically revising its price target on the solar stock, nearly doubling it to $232 per share. Goldman argues that Enphase, founded in 2006, is still a "relatively early secular growth story" and has "multi-year, multi-faceted growth potential" as it gains market share for solar inverters.
More than that, Goldman sees growth opportunities in rechargeable batteries, commercial business adoption of its products, and international expansion, according to TheFly.com today.
Now what
Enphase saw its $1.23 earnings per share in 2019 pared to an estimated $0.74 in 2020. But analysts on average predict the company will quickly rebound in 2021, surpassing 2019's EPS to earn $1.32. Indeed, S&P Global Market Intelligence shows the company's EPS rising as high as $3.59 by 2024, but Goldman thinks the company could do even better. In its estimation, there's a path to Enphase earning twice as much as most analysts think possible, with annual EPS of $7.
But the real question for investors is this: Even assuming everything goes right and Enphase earns what Goldman says it will, at $186 a share today, is Enphase worth paying 26.5 times the profit it might earn five years from now?
I have my doubts about that.
