A distant shot of the Goldman Sachs Tower in Jersey City, New Jersey. Photo Credit: Jordan Merrick
Goldman Sachs has upped its Spotify (SPOT) target price to $280 following the stock’s unprecedented gains – from a low of $109.18 per share to a current price of $264.95 – during the last three months.
Goldman analyst Heath Terry signaled confidence in the leading music streaming service’s recent podcast investments, including a $100 million deal with comedian Joe Rogan, as well as contracts with Kim Kardashian West and WarnerMedia.
As first reported on DMN, Spotify unveiled the Joe Rogan Experience deal about five weeks back, on May 19th.
Spotify’s shares picked up steam immediately after news of the agreement began circulating, and the market value growth continued this month, on the heels of the aforementioned partnerships with Kim Kardashian West (the program will center on criminal justice) and WarnerMedia (including scripted shows from the world of DC Comics).
Though Terry acknowledged the risks associated with boosting his SPOT target price from $205 to $280 (namely the podcasts’ hefty upfront price tags), he pointed to podcasting’s ongoing popularity and massive growth potential in explaining the $75 bump.
Additionally, several other financial professionals indicated earlier this week that they believe Spotify’s per-share price will reach a new all-time high of $275. Now, some are speculating that $300 is next.
During today’s trading hours, Spotify’s stock broke its running trend of recording substantial day-over-day gains. Each of the Stockholm-based brand’s shares parted with $2.52 (.94%) before the market closed, and after-hours trading had, at the time of this writing, brought a small additional loss of about $1 per share.
Nevertheless, SPOT shares grew tremendously throughout the last five days, from a Monday-morning price of about $228 to a Friday afternoon close of $264.95, once again. This $36.95 hike represents a market valuation uptick (across all 189.95 million outstanding shares) of over $7 billion, for a total market valuation of about $50.33 billion.
On Tuesday, we reported that Spotify was experimenting with an in-app music video feature, which was uncovered by decoder Jane Wong, but hasn’t been made available to users.
And as part of an effort to bolster podcasting’s advertising profitability and functionality ahead of the Joe Rogan Experience’s September arrival on the platform, Spotify is expanding its Streaming Ad Insertion technology in the United States.
Lastly, the music streaming platform is testing visual reminders – or links to in-podcast offers, which appear on podcasts’ main pages to make it easier for listeners to take advantage of adverts – in Germany and the U.S.
But when will Spotify pay their slaves (musicians) something close to decent instead of themselves huge bonuses, highest industry salaries and lush offices?