With the popularity of streaming video continuing to ascend and Roku (ROKU 5.41%) firmly entrenched as a market leader, it's not surprising to see Wall Street warming up to the niche pioneer. Truist analyst Matthew Thornton raised his firm's price target on the shares from $367 to $390 today. He has a buy rating on Roku stock.
The move may not seem like much. Thornton's new price goal is just 11% ahead of where Roku closed on Thursday. There are plenty of analysts with higher numbers out there. Daniel Kurnos at Benchmark turned heads in setting a Street-high target of $600 back in February that continues to stand. Thornton's move is still a welcome sight for Roku bulls in what has been a very disappointing month. Shares of Roku have tumbled 18% in August, so even a small victory is a win worth celebrating.
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Thornton is boosting his price target on Roku after sizing up a quarterly report earlier this month that the market itself found problematic. Roku shares tumbled following the second-quarter financial update three weeks ago, as investors became concerned about a sequential dip in usage and a warning that margins will come under pressure as supply chain constraints and cost increases eat into its bottom-line performance for the next couple of quarters.
A couple of analysts have lowered their price targets on Roku following the poorly received quarterly results. The latest move came last week when Citi analyst Jason Bazinet reduced his goal on the shares from $450 to $410 and lowered his active account forecasts in light of the recent deceleration.
Bazinet at $410 is better than Thornton at $390, but right now those price targets are passing ships. It's good to see any price goal move higher, weeks after many other market watchers went the other way.
Expectations have been reset, and that's a good thing in Thornton's eyes. He feels that the current consensus estimates are reasonable and more than achievable. Despite Roku's near-term hiccups on the cost and supply front, the long-term addressable market growth is still there for the taking.
There's a lot to like in Roku here at its current price tag. Roku's ability to monetize its still-expanding audience keeps improving. The sequential dip in streaming hours is easily explained by the country starting to venture back outside in the springtime of this year as the COVID-19 crisis seemed to be initially subsiding before the delta variant surge brought many of us back inside for the current quarter.
With investments in original content making Roku stand out even more in the market for streaming hubs and Roku's audience of 55.1 million continuing to grow, the August swoon could be a buying opportunity. Investors can place their chips on which of the streaming service stocks they feel will come out ahead, but the smarter gamble could just be to bet on the basket of streaming services by going with Roku as the gateway to the streaming experience. The stock got cheaper this month, but it's no clearance sale.
