Twitter ( NYSE: TWTR ) shares rose on Thursday, as investment firm Rosenblatt upgraded the social network, just days after one of the firm's analysts said it could fall to $11 per share.
Analyst Barton Crockett raised his rating on Twitter ( TWTR ) shares to buy with a $52 price target, noting that as more information has come out about the lawsuit and how much detail it explained to Elon Musk about spam accounts, it looks like Twitter ( TWTR ) has the leverage.
"...Twitter's disclosure of very detailed efforts to explain its spam bot calculations to Musk, and Musk's reluctance to engage, largely ends our skepticism about Twitter, and instead makes us skeptical about Musk," Crockett wrote in a note to clients.
Twitter ( TWTR ) shares rose slightly more than 1% to $37.19 in premarket trading.
"Twitter now looks like an unusually appealing near-term opportunity, in a market otherwise hammered by macro concerns," Crockett added.
Investment firm Hindenburg seems to agree with Crockett, as the firm, usually known for short-selling, said it had "accumulated a significant long position" in the stock. Hindenburg added that Twitter's ( TWTR ) complaint "poses a credible threat to Musk’s empire."
On Monday, Crockett went on TV and said Twitter ( TWTR ) "would be suffering at the low end of peers so it could be an $11 stock."
Twitter ( TWTR ) Chief Executive Parag Agrawal recently told company employees to expect a lot of "distracting" speculation about their future in the coming weeks following the lawsuit, but that the company would prove its position in court "and we believe we will prevail."
Analysts have been lukewarm on Twitter ( TWTR ). It had an average rating of HOLD from Wall Street analysts , while Seeking Alpha authors are more positive on it and still rate it a BUY . Conversely, Seeking Alpha's quant system, which consistently beats the market, rates TWTR a HOLD .
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Twitter rises as Rosenblatt upgrades, saying leverage in merger battle is on its side