Etsy, from crafters paradise to Wall Street’s darling

Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY) hit a new 52-week high in early December after KeyCorp raised their price target on the stock from 160 to 180 dollars. KeyCorp currently has an overweight rating on the stock. The company has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of 142.23 dollars per share.

The stock has a market capitalisation of 21.62 billion dollars. The online marketplace last announced its quarterly earnings results on October, 28. The retailer reported 0.70 dollars earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of 0.62 dollars apiece. Etsy also surpassed revenue expectations hitting 451.48 million dollars for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of 418.72 million dollars.

Etsy benefitted from the COVID driven e-commerce boom and is now well positioned for continued success in 2021, according to industry experts. Unique offerings, a reputation for selling high-quality craft products and a focus on human connections between buyers and sellers differentiate Etsy from other “mass online” retailers, according to City Biz List. Those advantages have come to the surface over the past nine months. Even if Etsy was growing at steady rates before COVID-19, the shift to online driven by the global pandemic has proven a boon for the company’s trajectory.

Etsy’s active buyers grows by 50 percent since late 2019

Since the end of 2019, Etsy has added 23 million active buyers (+50 percent vs the end of the year) and 1 million active sellers (+37 percent). It operates online market places for buyers and sellers primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, and Germany.

In 2020, Etsy is expected to clear around 10 billion dollars in gross merchandise sales (GMS), which still only represents a tiny fraction of its market opportunity, highlights Zippy Research. At 24 billion dollars market cap, the company is only getting started. With a strong management team that has delivered results since taking over in 2017, I believe the company will continue to execute its mission of “keeping commerce human” and also rewarding long-term shareholders.

Individual investors, mutual fund managers and hedge fund traders alike have been taking up its shares, which have risen by 300 percent this year, highlights the ‘Columbus Dispatch’. That makes Etsy by far the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 stock index, to which it was added in September, barely five years after it was taken public in 2015.