Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) had a bang-up day on Thursday, a lot better than most tech firms have had lately. Not only did it roll out some impressive earnings numbers, but it also got some new love from analysts. This amalgamation of good news was sufficient to push Fastly stock up over 20% at one point, making shares hit a nine-month high.
Fastly posted revenue of just over $119 million. That’s up 22% against this time last year. It not only blasted through the outer limits of Fastly’s own guidance, but it also nicely cleared analysts’ expectations. Analysts were looking for just $115 million. Though Fastly did post an earnings loss again, this time, the loss was just $0.08 per share on an adjusted basis. That was not only less than the loss posted this time last year, but it also beat consensus expectations that looked for a $0.13 loss. Fastly also added 33 customers during the quarter, including 11 enterprise-grade customers.
All of this was enough for Craig Hallum analyst Jeff Van Rhee to offer an upgrade on Fastly stock. Van Rhee changed his rating from Hold to Buy and also upgraded his price target from $9 to $17. Further, Van Rhee noted that Fastly was “…selling into a more predictable/manageable growth path.” That was sufficient to prompt investors to get in and ultimately bring Fastly up to a level it hadn’t seen in nine months.
Other analysts are less enthused, however, and moving toward a wait-and-see approach. Currently, analyst consensus calls Fastly stock a Hold with an average price target of $15.06. This implies 7.49% downside risk.
