Stifel upgraded Target stock to "buy" and upped its target price
The shares of Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) are up 1.5% at $191.69 this morning, after the retail giant earned a bull note from Stifel. The analyst upgraded TGT to "buy" from "hold" and hiked its price target to $225 from $200, after praising the company's strong digital sales performance and the rising popularity of its same-day services.
Today's pop has Target stock on pace for its third-straight win, and aiming for its highest close in over three weeks. Additionally, the equity is sitting well above its 20-day moving average after nine consecutive sessions under the trendline. Year-over-year, TGT has tacked on 65.9%.
Analysts were optimistic toward the equity coming into today, with 12 of the 18 in coverage sporting a "strong buy" rating, and the remaining six carrying a tepid "hold." Plus, the 12-month consensus price target of $200.59 is a 5% premium to current levels.
Lastly, the equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.41 sits in just the 4th percentile of its annual range, suggesting short-term option players have rarely been more call-heavy during the past 12 months. And now may not be a bad time to consider options either, per Target stock's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 25%, which stands higher than just 5% of all other readings from the past 12 months. This implies that options players are pricing in relatively low volatility expectations at the moment.