Pinterest is a buying opportunity for investors as it makes progress improving user engagement and monetization, Citi says. Citi analyst Ronald Josey upgraded shares to buy/high risk after coming out of the Analyst Day more confident that Pinterest can turn its business around. Pinterest is underperforming this year, up only about 8%, while the S & P 500 is higher by more than 15%. However, the analyst’s $36 price target, raised from $31 previously, represents more than 37% upside from where shares closed Tuesday. Pinterest shares popped 4.2% in premarket trading Wednesday. PINS 1D mountain Pinterest shares 1-day “[We] emerge from its analyst day incrementally confident that engagement can continue to ramp, that ads innovation and its full-funnel approach to advertising can deliver improving monetization trends, and that adj. EBITDA margins can expand going forward,” Josey wrote Wednesday. “Simply put, we believe Product investments over the past year+ are improving the user experience and we note greater relevance and personalization of content across the platform,” Josey added. The analyst clarified that Pinterest’s comeback is in its early days, but said the company has an “achievable guide” of mid- to high-teens compounded annual growth rate over the next three to five years. “We believe the risk-reward in shares is positive,” Josey wrote. Citi was not the only Wall Street firm to upgrade Pinterest shares Wednesday. D.A. Davidson’s Tom Forte raised his rating to buy from neutral after the company’s latest analyst day spurred him to raise his forecasts. He raised his price target to $35 from $25, about 34% above where the stock last closed. “Our upgrade is a reflection of our confidence in management’s ability to achieve those financial targets by: 1) increasing engagement on the platform, 2) improving its monetization in not only the US/Canadian region but also the European and Rest of World geographies, and 3) sustaining financial discipline (when it comes to investing while maintaining high margins),” Forte wrote Wednesday. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
