Bank of America thinks electric vehicle charging company ChargePoint is well positioned to capitalize on industry and regulatory tail winds. Analyst Alex Vrabel upgraded the company’s shares to buy from neutral. His new price target of $14 implies a 65% rally from Friday’s close. “The reason for our upgrade is simple – CHPT has proof of execution, line of sight to profitability and with its story largely unchanged since the PIPE offering, valuation is compelling against shares making all-time lows,” Vrabel wrote in a Tuesday note. “CHPT [is] a best-in-class way to play [the] EV charging theme,” he added. ChargePoint’s shares have tumbled almost 19% quarter to date, and they’re down 10.9% in 2023. Earlier this month, the stock hit an all-time low of $7.82 per share. Despite the decline, Vrabel said that the company’s fundamentals remain intact and that he is comfortable on the “line of sight to cash inflection.” CHPT ICLN YTD mountain ChargePoint Holdings shares have notably underperformed in 2023 To be sure, he noted that ChargePoint has been one of the “worst-performing” growth-focused names in 2023, even falling behind the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) , which has lost more than 6% year to date. “We stress that while ChargePoint is in theory a ‘clean energy’ company, its revenue drivers are broader, hinged principally to a secular narrative around the shift to EVs that is still in early stages, and which provides outsized line of sight on secular growth,” said Vrabel. “Given the company’s customer, geographic and product diversity, CHPT is a uniquely ‘broad’ investment on EV charging trends which we believe will weather recessionary pressures across pocketed segments of its client base,” the analyst added. The company’s shares were up 5% during premarket trading Tuesday. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
