Shares of Snowflake (SNOW -3.38%) are trading down 20% year to date following a disappointing outlook for growth issued during the company's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call in February.
Heading into the company's upcoming first-quarter earnings report, Bank of America analyst Brad Sills is maintaining a neutral (hold) rating on the shares but he just lowered the price target from $212 to $200. That new price target still implies a 22% upside from the current stock price over the next 12 months or so.
Here's what you need to know.
Why Snowflake stock is down
Snowflake's product revenue grew 33% year over year last quarter, which would be enough to support the stock's valuation. But the company expects fiscal Q1 product revenue to rise 26% to 27% year over year, with full-year growth expected to decelerate further to 22%. That's a bit too much deceleration for a stock that is trading at an expensive valuation.
Based on page views data from Similarweb, analyst Brad Sills sees a weakening trend that seems to confirm the company's guidance for slowing growth. Snowflake's page views were trending above normal in February but then weakened below normal seasonality in March and April. The data suggests that investors shouldn't expect material upside to Snowflake's revenue guidance.
Even though Sills has a neutral rating on the shares, the $200 price target implies the expectation for the stock to eventually move back toward its previous high, when it was trading around $230 earlier this year. With the stock trading at a lofty price-to-sales ratio of 18 and an equally expensive valuation based on free cash flow, Snowflake's near-term upside appears limited. Sills may be a bit too optimistic about this stock.
