The stock market had a good day on Tuesday, building on momentum from earlier in the week and powering the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.21%) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -0.17%) to record closes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.25%) posted modest gains as well. Overall, investors seem to have confidence that the Federal Reserve won't take away the punch bowl of accommodative monetary policy too quickly, and that should serve to help some of the growth stocks that led 2020's massive rebound to further gains.
|
Index |
Percentage Change |
Point Change |
|---|---|---|
|
Dow |
+0.20% |
+69 |
|
S&P 500 |
+0.51% |
+22 |
|
Nasdaq Composite |
+0.79% |
+112 |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
When it comes to stock market momentum, the place many investors look is the high-growth arena. Rising companies have come to prominence by taking advantage of favorable trends in the marketplace, and today's gains from cybersecurity expert CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD -0.58%) and connected-TV platform provider Roku (ROKU -0.67%) signaled that another wave higher for these popular stocks could be the impetus for a continuing bull market run during the second half of 2021 and beyond.
Image source: Getty Images.
CrowdStrike gets some positive attention
Shares of CrowdStrike Holdings were up nearly 8% on Tuesday. That pushed the cybersecurity stock to its best level ever, wiping out a substantial correction that took place earlier this year between February and March.
The latest upward move for CrowdStrike came amid favorable comments from Wall Street analysts. Professionals at Stifel pointed to CrowdStrike's business as having a lot more potential for future growth, and they therefore upgraded the stock from hold to buy. Stifel also set a $300 per-share price target on CrowdStrike's stock.
Analysts are pleased to see CrowdStrike growing its business in multiple ways. The company is attracting new customers, taking advantage of favorable trends toward increasing digitalization across the global economy. At the same time, with a wide array of features on its platform, CrowdStrike has done a good job of enticing existing clients to use more of the new features that the cloud-security specialist is releasing on a regular basis.
In the long run, Stifel believes that CrowdStrike could multiply its current customer count nearly tenfold. That would obviously have huge implications for the stock, and that's why investors on Tuesday are looking at CrowdStrike with a more favorable eye.
The show goes on at Roku
Meanwhile, shares of Roku closed higher by another 5%, moving above the $400 per-share level for the first time since early March. The streaming television-platform provider still has further to go to reach its all-time highs, but shareholders seem optimistic about Roku's long-term prospects.
Tuesday's gains added to a 4% move higher on Monday following favorable comments from analysts covering the stock. Analysts at Loop Capital boosted their price target on Roku by $25 per share, with a new target of $475 per share. The move came amid bullish comments about the state of the advertising market, which many see recovering in the wake of reopening following the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roku has thus far done an excellent job of playing streaming services against each other. By maintaining a neutral platform, Roku isn't playing favorites, but its service has become an essential vehicle to reach potential subscribers. That's given Roku increasing leverage to negotiate favorable deals, and as digital-advertising spending rises, Roku should be in an even better position to stay on top of its game.
High-growth stocks like Roku and CrowdStrike played vital roles in helping the stock market reach record highs in 2020. If they can continue to perform well, then they might prove equally instrumental in allowing the bull market to keep moving higher.
