Tech stock Tableau Software Inc (NYSE:DATA) burst out of the gate to a two-year high of $97.09, and was last seen trading up 8.9% at $92.78, thanks to the company's well-received earnings release. Adjusted earnings-per-share and revenue for the first quarter easily exceeded consensus estimates, while Tableau also announced an additional $300 million in stock buybacks.
There's been a flurry of analyst attention in response to the report, and it's all been bullish. Bernstein was by far the most ambitious of the bunch, boosting its price target to $124 from $107, representing territory not seen in almost three years, and a more than 38% premium to current levels. Citigroup and Barclays also set noteworthy price targets of $104 each.
Coming into today, however, most analysts in coverage were actually bearish on DATA shares, with 16 of 25 handing out "hold" or "strong sell" opinions. Considering the equity has been in an impressive uptrend since January 2017 -- not to mention today will mark the fifth time in six quarters the shares have rallied the day after earnings -- it wouldn't be surprising to see more of these bearish holdouts upwardly revise their outlooks on the security, potentially bringing more buyers to the table.
Short sellers have been hitting the exits at a rapid pace, too. In fact, short interest is down more than 44% in 2018. Still, the 3.04 million Tableau Software shares sold short are almost five times the average daily trading volume, suggesting there's room for this short-covering trend to continue -- which would be a boon for the stock.