By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 22nd, 2024
On Wednesday, Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify saw its stock swell following a JMP upgrade to ‘Market Outperform.’
Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) stock has surged after a JMP Securities upgrade. On Wednesday, the California-based full-service investment platform upgraded SHOP from Market Perform to Market Outperform with a $65 per share price target.
JMP Views Shopify Stock as ‘Leader in E-Commerce Enablement’
JMP analysts see an upside to Shopify stock after analyzing the OpEx structure across the website builders. In addition, analysts assessed third-party website traffic data and consulted with professional website developers across the platforms before arriving at their conclusion.
In reaffirming Shopify as the leader in e-commerce enablement with share upswing potential, JMP analysts said:
“Shopify GMV estimates have upside, while there is room for greater expense discipline. While we acknowledge macro remains a risk for 2H23 discretionary consumer spending and Shopify is in an investment cycle with SFN, the size of SFN investments is less than we initially feared, and we believe there is upside to our GMV projections as Shopify is gaining traction with larger enterprise businesses.”
JMP analysts also wrote:
“This as our OpEx analysis suggests Shopify has the opportunity to execute on cost synergies with Deliverr, and third-party traffic data suggests it continues to take share.”
Following the JMP development yesterday, Shopify shares rose 7% before paring down to 3.8%, or $46.50. However, as of press time, the Ontario-based e-commerce company’s stock was changing hands at $45.30. As of April 6th, Shopify’s average one-year price target was $49.97, with forecasts ranging from a low of $32.32 to a high of $85.50. In addition, the company’s average price target is an 11.58% increase from its latest reported closing price of over $44.
Shopify stock is also up 20% to 30% this year, buoyed by the upgrade. In addition, the company’s projected annual revenue is $6.7 billion, representing an increase of 21.13%.
Shopify
Shopify is a world-renowned e-commerce facilitator that offers online retailers several services. Retailers can use marketing, payments, shipping, and customer engagement tools to start and grow a business. According to Shopify, its platform and services are engineered for reliability. In addition, the Canadian company also strives to consistently deliver a better shopping experience for consumers across the globe.
In December 2021, Shopify boasted more than 2,000,000 businesses in 175 countries. Also, the e-commerce powerhouse was among the top 20 largest publicly-traded Canadian companies by market cap in July 2022.
Several reputable brands like PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP), Allbirds (NASDAQ: BIRD), Staples Inc, and Gymshark rely on Shopify.
Avalanche NFT Support on Venly
At the beginning of the year, Shopify onboarded support for Avalanche non-fungible tokens (NFTs). According to the company, merchants could now mint and list their digital assets using a Shopify blockchain app – Venly. This development negates the need for third-party facilitators such as OpenSea, Magic Eden, or Rarible.
Founded in 2018, Venly is one of the blockchain app partners integrated with Shopify. The service offers blockchain wallet solutions and plans to incorporate support for Hedera and Immutable X down the stretch.