What Happened?
Shares of laser company nLIGHT (NASDAQ:LASR) jumped 4.6% in the morning session after an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an 'Overweight' rating on the shares while significantly raising the price target.
The analyst, Troy Jensen, increased the price target by 21.82% from $27.50 to $33.50, signaling strong confidence in the company's future performance. This positive outlook from Cantor Fitzgerald aligns with a broader trend of bullish sentiment from market analysts. The new target of $33.50 represents the high-end estimate among recent analyst evaluations, which have an average 12-month price target of $27.43 for the company, reflecting growing optimism about the stock's value.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $29.97, up 4.5% from previous close.
Is now the time to buy nLIGHT? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What Is The Market Telling Us
nLIGHT’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 34 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 10 days ago when the stock dropped 4% on the news that a surprisingly weak August jobs report revealed the U.S. economy added far fewer jobs than anticipated.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that non-farm payrolls rose by just 22,000, significantly missing the 75,000 expected by economists. Compounding the concerns, the unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, its highest level in nearly four years. The report also included downward revisions to previous months' data, with June now showing the first net job loss since 2020. While a cooling labor market could encourage the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, investors reacted negatively. The sharp slowdown in hiring sparked fears of a broader economic downturn, causing stocks to fall as the market weighed whether the Fed's potential actions would be enough to prevent a recession.
nLIGHT is up 188% since the beginning of the year, and at $29.97 per share, has set a new 52-week high. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of nLIGHT’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,350.
Here at StockStory, we certainly understand the potential of thematic investing. Diverse winners from Microsoft (MSFT) to Alphabet (GOOG), Coca-Cola (KO) to Monster Beverage (MNST) could all have been identified as promising growth stories with a megatrend driving the growth. So, in that spirit, we’ve identified a relatively under-the-radar profitable growth stock benefiting from the rise of AI, available to you FREE via this link.