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Twilio price target raised to $114 from $103 at KeyBanc. KeyBanc analyst Brent Bracelin raised his price target for Twilio to $114 from $103 as he sees multiple upside levers to consensus growth of 31% in 2019. The analyst notes that accelerating revenue growth and improving profitability, coupled with multiple expansion, contributed to the shares more than tripling last year. While further multiple expansion is less likely in 2019, growth fundamentals remain strong and could warrant additional price appreciation on increasing CPaaS usage across 2M-plus developers and broader enterprise penetration, he contends. Bracelin reiterates an Overweight rating on the shares.

Microsoft, Salesforce among top Software stocks to own in 2019, says KeyBanc. KeyBanc analyst Brent Bracelin notes that despite challenging market conditions during Q4, the 45 software applications in his coverage universe outperformed the broader market by a wide margin. While industry conditions for application software appear more volatile entering 2019, the analyst sees a favorable backdrop for modern cloud-based applications with recurring subscription-based revenue models and continues to favor growth over value. His top software application stocks to own for 2019 include Microsoft (MSFT), Synopsys (SNPS), PTC (PTC), RealPage (RP), Talend (TLND), Salesforce (CRM), Shopify (SHOP), Twilio (TWLO), Avalara (AVLR).

Piper ups targets for Twilio, Zendesk and makes 'wild' Software predictions. In a research note previewing the year ahead for Application and Infrastructure Software, Piper Jaffray analyst Alex Zukin raised his price target for Twilio (TWLO) to $110 from $95 and for Zendesk (ZEN) to $85 from $72.50. The analyst keeps Overweight ratings on both names. His top picks for 2019 are Twilio, Zendesk and Adobe (ADBE). Zukin believes all three possess a combination of "strong fundamentals given their respective leadership positions in large markets and positive numbers revisions on already discounted valuations vs. peers." The analyst also made some "wild predictions of potential industry shaking events." He admits these are "low probability" predictions. The first one is Amazon.com (AMZN) spinning out Web Services. The second "wild" prediction is Oracle (ORCL) going private. The third is Google (GOOG, GOOGL) buying ServiceNow (NOW). And the fourth is Salesforce agreeing to merge with Workday (WDAY) in an all-stock transaction.