While Fools should generally take the opinion of Wall Street with a grain of salt, it's not a bad idea to take a look at particularly stock-shaking analyst upgrades and downgrades -- just in case their reasoning behind the call makes sense.
What: Shares of Move (NASDAQ: MOVE) climbed 2% today after Benchmark Company raised its price target on the online real estate site operator.
So what: Benchmark simply reiterated its buy rating on Move, but moved the price target all the way from $17 to $23 per share -- representing about 39% worth of upside to its closing price on Friday. Value investors might find the stock's red-hot price action in 2013 a little disconcerting, but analyst Daniel Kurnos believes that Move's still-juicy growth prospects and cheap valuation relative to peers like Zillow and Trulia give it plenty of room to run.
Now what: Benchmark doesn't expect Move's operating momentum to slow anytime soon. "We believe Move continues to gain traction across its entire product suite, with a turnaround in the core Showcase platform leading to stronger optics and improved cash flow growth over the medium- to long-term," said Kurnos. "[W]e view Move as the preferred long-term way to play the online housing market." Of course, when you consider just how expensive the stock seems on an absolute basis -- price-to-sales of 3 and an EV/EBITDA of 40 -- I'd wait for a much wider margin of safety before moving in.
