AppFolio upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens

Stephens analyst John Campbell upgraded AppFolio to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $212, up from $184. While the firm has “long believed” that AppFolio would maintain impressive growth, the “murky profit side of the coin stood out as the main issue,” but following a change in leadership there has been a series of actions taken to elevate the margin profile that combine to “signal a clear shift in the mindset to profitable growth,” the analyst tells investors. This has been “the missing element” of the AppFolio story, adds the analyst, who now sees “a beat/raise path ahead for ’23” that should help push consensus estimates higher.