Why One Analyst Sees Twitter Running Another 20%

December 18, 2017 by Chris Lange

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) shares reached a new multiyear high in Monday’s session after the company reportedly launched a new global general news network partnership with Bloomberg Media. While this news moved the stock initially, one key analyst piled on to the stock and helped Twitter rise even higher.

It’s not uncommon for news junkies or millennials to turn to Twitter for essentially instant but non-curated news coverage. The downside is consumers can never be quite sure that the news is real. If Bloomberg can quickly verify news posted by consumers, this could be a big deal.

Justin Smith, Bloomberg Media CEO, commented:

The launch of this new network further reinforces our strategy of driving innovation through exciting new products and services that touch a broad audience around the world. … [C]onsumers will be able to watch live news and the conversation around it at the same time, all while a dedicated team of Bloomberg editors verifies the facts. We’re leveraging our journalism and data to reach and inform an intelligent audience on Twitter around the world.

JPMorgan’s Doug Anmuth this morning raised his rating on the shares to Overweight from Neutral and raised his price target to $27 from $20, implying an upside of 21.5% from Twitters most recent closing price of $22.23.

Anmuth detailed in his report:

Twitter is increasingly focused on live video as part of its mission to be the place for real-time content. Twitter streamed 830 live events during 3Q, 74% of which went to a global audience. Importantly, all of the 16 live-streaming content partnerships announced at the Digital NewFronts in May will be funded and will launch, and Twitter also added 30 new partnerships during 3Q. As shown in Figure 1 below, video content is heavily focused across sports, news, and entertainment. We are optimistic on TicToc by Bloomberg, the 24/7 global news network that will launch on Twitter today.

Overall, Anmuth believes that Twitter will continue on this course of grow as the result of its growing number of daily active users. In fact Twitter has grown daily active users by at least 10% for the past four quarters.

Shares of Twitters were last seen up 8% at $24.03, with a consensus analyst price target of $18.80 and a 52-week range of $14.12 to $24.17.

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