What happened
While a dangerous winter storm brings frigid temperatures to large swaths of the country today, investors are turning a cold shoulder to shares of ChargePoint (CHPT +1.05%). The electric vehicle (EV) charging company inched less than 1% higher yesterday compared to Wednesday's close, but an analyst's bearish take on the stock today is giving back that meager gain -- and then some.
As of 11:34 a.m. ET, shares of ChargePoint are down 8.8%.
NYSE: CHPT
Key Data Points
So what
Maintaining a neutral rating, Kashy Harrison, an analyst at Piper Sandler, reduced the price target on ChargePoint's stock to $13 from $16. According to The Fly, Harrison is more bullish on the prospects of the utility-scale solar market in the U.S. as a way to benefit from the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Harrison's downward revised price target isn't the only example of an analyst becoming more bearish on ChargePoint's stock recently. On Dec. 5, DA Davidson analyst Matt Summerville reduced his price target to $18 from $20. Days earlier, analysts at R.F. Lafferty and Oppenheimer had cut their price targets to $28 from $34 and to $26 from $40, respectively.
This trend of Wall Street expressing consistent pessimism for ChargePoint's stock is clearly weighing heavily on investors' minds -- especially in light of the company's third-quarter 2022 earnings report from earlier this month, which failed to meet analysts' expectations.
Now what
Wall Street may be souring on ChargePoint's prospects, but for those with the EV stock on their radars, remember that analysts opinions aren't everything. Often, their investing horizons are shorter than the multiyear holding periods we prefer. Those who have an interest in powering their portfolios with this EV charging stock, therefore, should dig in deeper to the company's fundamentals and not pay as much mind to what Wall Street thinks right now.
