Shares in printed circuit board developer Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) are inching lower this afternoon and now trade less than 1% in the red at $41.01.
Altium shareholders will rejoice in the company's performance over the past 3 months. Shares bounced off a low of $31.18 in late September and have been on the upward trajectory ever since, and are now trading near all time highs.
Has Altium passed its use-by date? Let's take a closer look at what the experts think.
Does the Altium share price have the legs to keep rising?
Investors responded positively to Altium's AGM last month, sending the stock over 5% higher on the day of the release.
The gain pushed out an extended bull-run for the company, which has climbed more than 31.5% in the last 3 months. In that period, it has traded as high as $43.18 – a record high for its share price.
Altium's recent trading update has the team at investment bank Citi hot on its heels. The firm reckons that Altium is well on track to beat the consensus forecast on its annual revenue.
In a recent note to clients, Citi points out that Altium is tracking above the lower end of sales guidance of $209 million–$217 million and EBITDA margins of 34%–36%.
For reference, the consensus or average of analyst estimates on Altium's revenue is currently at $212 million, Citi says.
It also acknowledges that Altium grew its cloud-platform user base by 35% since August, which it reckons is a positive catalyst for the share price, and consequently rates it as a buy.
Fellow investment bank Jefferies is on the same page as Citi when it comes to its assessment of Altium.
The firm reckons that Altium has potential to continuously capture market share of the enterprise market.
It too thinks Altium is a buy after re-rating the stock in a recent note to clients. In its reasoning, the firm says that it has spoken to an unnamed industry expert, as well as that Altium is cheaper and easier to use than products from its competitors.
Not only that, Altium's cloud-service adoption and integration capacity is also attractive to Jefferies, alongside its recent trading update, further affirming the broker's buy rating.
Jefferies values Altium at $48.83 after raising its price target by 66% in a recent model update.
Altium share price summary
In the last 12 months, the Altium share price has gained almost 13% after rallying more than 20% this year to date.
It has held gains over the past 3 months and is now up almost 2.5% in the previous month, having just come off its all time highs in early December.
