This was quite a fine week to be an owner of Uber Technologies (UBER -0.38%) stock. On the back of a solid quarterly earnings report, the company announced the first share repurchase program in the company's history. This proved to be irresistible for many investors, and they pushed the stock's price up by almost 15% week to date as of late Thursday night, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Following up on an impressive quarter
On Valentine's Day, Uber won plenty of love from the market with its announcement of that stock buyback initiative. It's considerable, this program, at a maximum of $7 billion. The company did not specify an end date for the program.
The timing of the announcement was smart; it came one week after Uber divulged its fourth quarter and full-year results.
Both were impressive, with the quarter's bookings and revenue growing a respective 22% and 15% year over year. Better, headline net income more than doubled to a shade over $1.4 billion. The ridesharing giant handily beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Finally, it posted its first annual net profit.
All aboard for price target increases
After that double-cylinder blast of good news, it wasn't surprising when a fleet of analysts tracking Uber stock raised their price targets.
Pundits from influential financial services companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America Securities all added at least a few dollars per share to their levels. A typical example was Bank of America's Justin Post, who cranked his price target $13 higher to $91 per share. He maintained his buy recommendation on the shares as he did so.
