Viant upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James

Raymond James analyst Andrew Marok upgraded Viant Technology to Outperform from Market Perform with a $7 price target. Viant has traded off significantly since its post-initial public offering heights on worries around cookie deprecation positioned as a native cookie-less alternative, the analyst tells investors in a research note. However, the firm sees reasons to become incrementally more positive on the Viant story at this point and at these levels, including a rationalization of its customer base, moving away from large clients to focus on an underserved segment of small/medium-sized agencies and advertisers, and a “call option” on cookie deprecation at a reasonable valuation.