Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings tomorrow morning. Ahead of the quarterly event, TWTR stock saw its price target hiked to $22 from $18 at Deutsche Bank. The brokerage firm is just the latest to weigh in on Twitter's turnaround efforts, waxing optimistic over the microblogging firm's impressive user growth and ad revenue. This still represents a discount to last night's close at $25.24, and if last quarter's post-earnings price action is any guide, more bullish brokerage notes could come down the pike for TWTR.
Specifically, Twitter shares surged 18.5% in the session following the company's late-October earnings report -- echoing a mid-April post-earnings pop. Last February and July, though, the reaction to Twitter earnings was negative. Looking back over the past eight quarters, the stock has averaged a single-session post-earnings swing of 11.1%, with the options market pricing in a bigger 17.3% this time around, according to Trade-Alert.
On the charts, TWTR stock has been bouncing higher since its August lows near $15.75. In the past six months alone, the shares have surged 56.3%, and a late-January bounce off their rising 60-day moving average helped send Twitter to a two-year high of $27.33 last Thursday, Feb. 1. Plus, the equity is trading up 2.5% in electronic trading, on tailwinds from well-received Snap earnings.
Analysts, however, haveyet to catch up to Twitter's price action. Of the 29 brokerages covering the shares, 24 maintain a "hold" or worse recommendation. Plus, the average 12-month price target of $21.29 sits well below TWTR stock's current price. This leaves the door wide open for upgrades and/or price-target hikes, should the social media company's earnings impress.