What happened
Like the expanse it's named after, Sea Limited (SE 4.34%) has had swells and troughs as a stock over the years. Happily for the Asian mobile tech company's shareholders, Thursday was one of the former. Sea's stock ended up the day cresting over 3% higher, more than double the percentage gain of the S&P 500 index. An analyst's price target bump was instrumental in that pop.
So what
The raiser was Loop Capital's Rob Sanderson, who gave a big lift to his Sea price target. He now believes the stock is fairly valued at $88 per share, which is well above his previous estimation of $62. Despite the monster raise, Sanderson isn't budging from his hold recommendation on the shares.
The analyst's reasoning behind his rather dramatic move wasn't immediately apparent. It fits a recent pattern, however, as several of Sanderson's peers have boosted their takes on the company in recent weeks.
This shouldn't be very surprising to any Sea watcher. Just over one month ago, the specialty tech company unveiled its fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 results.
The former impressed with a surprise profit -- Sea's net income came in at $0.72 per share, quite the shock, given that the average analyst estimate was for a $0.64 loss. Revenue also topped consensus, coming in at $3.45 billion against the collective prognosticator figure of $3.06 billion.
Now what
Among that clutch of price target raises was one recommendation upgrade. Just after Sea's quarterly results were published, a trio of prognosticators at Singapore brokerage UOB Kay Hian pegged the stock as a buy, up one peg from their preceding hold.
The team wrote that the company should continue to significantly improve its bottom line, thanks chiefly to "strong cost efficiency and higher transaction fee for its e-commerce segment, higher contribution from its value-added service in logistics, and higher contribution from its digital financial services (DFS) segment."
