Technology

Veeva's Hot Stock Cools Off: Sometimes Beating Expectations and Analyst Upgrades Aren't Enough

Jon C. Ogg

Published: August 28, 2019 1:30 pm

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 4:23 am

Veeva Systems Inc. (NYSE: VEEV) is a company that every investor might want to love. That’s the go-to view. Veeva managed to beat earnings and raise guidance, and its shares had risen a whopping 80% or so ahead of its report.

Veeva Systems is in a place that might sound like it has limitless growth. The company provides cloud-based software solutions to the life sciences industry around the globe. Veeva’s Commercial Cloud platform is a suite of multichannel customer relationship management applications and data management solutions and was formerly known as Verticals onDemand.

While the company announced that revenues rose 27% to $267 million and it guided revenues to $1.062 billion to $1.065 billion for the fiscal year, its adjusted earnings of $0.55 per share and earnings guidance of $2.11 to $2.13 were against fiscal consensus estimates of $2.04 in earnings per share and $1.05 billion in revenues.

Also overshadowing the news was that Veeva’s chief financial officer was retiring. Veeva came public in 2013, and its stock was in a sleeper-stock pattern until early in 2017. When the shares broke out above $45 in March of 2017, they never came back down. This stock recently peaked just above $175, and its post-earnings small drop comes with a market cap of $23.7 billion.

Sometimes too much good news can inflate a company’s shares beyond what the market can easily justify. That appears to be the case for Veeva Systems, given the post-earnings reaction. The valuation for this year would be about 22 times its annual revenues and about 75 times this year’s earnings per share.

While the shares did not pop higher on earnings, some analysts raised their price target expectations. Here are some analyst calls that have been seen:

• Stifel reiterated Veeva as Buy and raised its target price to $185 from $175.
• Guggenheim reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target to $180 from $154.
  KeyBanc Capital Markets reiterated it as Overweight and raised its target from $172 to $190.
• JMP Securities reiterated it as Market Outperform and raised its target to $172 from $153.
• Needham reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target price to $187 from $150.
• Stephens reiterated its Overweight rating and raised its target price to $185 from $155.
• SunTrust Robinson Humphrey reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target from $150 to $180.
• D.A. Davidson reiterated its Buy rating and raised its price objective to $200 from $165.

Not all analysts are chasing the valuations here. JPMorgan reiterated its Neutral rating but raised its target to $183 from $150. Raymond James said it was looking for a more attractive entry point. And Canaccord Genuity said that Veeva Systems is firing on cylinders as the power of its vertical cloud is at scale. Sounds great, but the firm reiterated its Hold stance, based on high valuations, although it did raise its target to $155 from $135.

Veeva Systems closed at $163.41 on Tuesday, but the post-earnings reaction on Wednesday afternoon was a drop of 1.5% to $161.00. Its consensus target price was $158.20 ahead of the calls, and its 52-week trading range is $79.26 to $176.90.