Goldman Sachs upgraded Coinbase (COIN) from “sell” to “neutral” and raised its price target from $170 to $282. The company cited recent increases in cryptocurrency prices as the reason for the upgrade, particularly the soaring price of Bitcoin (BTC-USD), which at one point exceeded $70,000 on Friday.
Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton explain the upgrade in the video above.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich.
video transcript
Julie Hyman: We're also looking at Coinbase. Goldman Sachs ended its bearish stance on Coinbase, upgrading it from sell to neutral. And then this call came in the middle of Bitcoin's big rally. The cryptocurrency briefly reached 70,000 today, but has since fallen. $282 is Goldman's current price target for this name. And basically, it has to do with what's happening here with the price of cryptocurrencies.
And they basically thought that cryptocurrencies weren't going to do as well as they had in the past. And the fact that it happened is now making them reconsider this. They have been selling shares going back to 2022. So they were actually capturing some of the downside from there. Things were going well for a while, but then things started to pick up. So now they're coming out. Again, this could be called a slightly delayed call, like in the case of GE, after some rally has already happened.
Josh Lipton: Well, here's another headline. By the way, today Coinbase has risen above its direct listing price. So this is the first time in over two years. Of course, we will go public in 2021 through direct listing. Full of motivation. The stock price reached about $380. After that, the stock price understandably came under pressure. 2022 was the winter of cryptocurrencies. The situation continues to be difficult. Of course, you know, last year. And gave hints of a completely different story about it. I think it was 300% in the last 12 months.
Julie Hyman: Yeah.
