The S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) ended up having a solid, if not spectacular, day of trading this Wednesday. By market close, the All Ordinaries had gained a robust 0.47% to 7,772 points. But the Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price managed a far better performance.
Appen shares ended the day at the rather unlucky number of $6.66 each, up a healthy 4.88%. Symbology aside, this would no doubt come as a welcome development for investors, who, before today, had watched Appen lose more than 7% over the first two weeks of April alone.
That's unfortunately not where this dataset provider company's woes end either. From its glory WAAAX days of times gone by, Appen shares are now down more than 40% in 2022 thus far, and by more than 60% over the past 12 months. That's including today's gains, too.
So why did Appen enjoy such a strong day of trading on the ASX today?
Why did the Appen share price shoot 5% higher?
Well, it's unclear. The company made no announcements today, nor were there any other developments to speak of. Some ASX tech shares performed well today, though. Block Inc (ASX: SQ2) was up 0.73% at $165 a share. But many other ASX tech shares, including Xero Limited (ASX: XRO), Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) and WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) fell. So it doesn't seem to be a sector-wide move.
So perhaps investors have just decided Appen shares are cheap enough to be in the buy zone. After all, Appen touched a low of $6.35 just yesterday, which isn't too far from this company's 52-week low of $6.08.
At least one ASX broker is bullish on Appen right now. As my Fool colleague Tristan covered earlier this month, broker Citi has a buy rating on Appen with a 12-month share price target of $9.15. If that came to pass, it would mean a rise of almost 40% from today's pricing.
Whatever the reason for today's strong price rise for Appen shares, no doubt it came as a welcome development for shareholders.
Appen has a market capitalisation of $783.49 million with a dividend yield of 1.5%.
