VerticalScope Holdings Inc T.FORA

Analyst lowered to "neutral" on FORA

[ideaguy]

CIBC World Markets analyst Todd Coupland has lowered his recommendation for Verticalscope Holdings to "neutral" from "outperformer."

The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Coupland slashed his share target back by $3 to $9. Analysts on average target the shares at $13.67.

Mr. Coupland says in a note, "A deceleration in web traffic across the digital advertising websites we track, in addition to slowing growth across the digital advertising space, have prompted us to reduce our multiple and revenue forecast for the second half of 2024."

The Globe reported on Aug. 24, 2023, that Mr. Coupland rated Verticalscope Holdings "neutral" in new coverage. In the item, Mr. Coupland said cyclical headwinds were hindering the digital advertising market. He said, "While we believe Verticalscope is an excellent company, it is too early, in our opinion, to pay for our upside scenario." The shares could then be had for $5.60

[retiredcf]

Sour grapes? This analyst might be embarrassed by having missed the call so I checked his past reports. After his August 2023 report, he still didn't like FORA in November but finally upgraded it in March when he raised the target to $9.00. Following a strong outlook for Q2 after a solid Q1, he again raised his target to $12.00 in May. Below is what he wrote two months ago so IMHO, you might

[Frost19]

Strange that the stock would drop ~10% when an analyst moves from outperformer to neutral.  It's hard to believe VerticalScope market cap is only ~130M with 39M net debt (~170M EV) to June 30. It will easily finish 2024 with 20-30M FCF, probably around the midpoint. Thats less than 7x FCF yield and without Q3 results in yet (we are in Q4!).  Even if revenue growth slows a bit, they