Oppenheimer analyst Koji Ikeda upgraded BlackLine to Outperform from Perform with a $75 price target. The analyst sees a potential bounce back year for BlackLine on the back of better business fundamentals and execution trends this year. Ikeda tells investors in a research note that he believes the execution issues are behind the business and the competitive threats are overblown. Therefore, BlackLine looks set up to deliver a cleaner story in 2020. These trends should result in better investor sentiment that should help drive valuation multiples higher this year, the analyst adds.

Piper Sandler upgraded BlackLine to Neutral from Underweight with a price target of $62, up from $55. The analyst says further downside risks appear limited relative to second half of 2024 consensus growth estimates of 8%. The estimate could prove too conservative based on improving cloud fundamentals at SAP where the cloud backlog increased by EUR 3B year-over-year to EUR 14.2B on 28% constant currency growth versus 27% last quarter, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm, however, says cloud backlog may take time to materialize into a tailwind for BlackLine. It notes about 25% of BlackLine sales were driven by the SAP partnership last year.