Roblox Climbed 5% as Analysts Initiate Coverage With Buy Ratings

Roblox was rising Monday after several analysts initiated coverage of the video game platform with positive ratings a month after the company went public.

Shares of Roblox was climbing 4.9% to $70.64 in Monday morning trading.

Bank of America analyst Ryan Gee initiated coverage of the company with a buy rating and a $70 price target.

"RBLX offers exposure to the massive mobile TAM (Total Addressable Market) with less-relative capital risk than what we associate with traditional content creators," Gee said in a research note. "The blend of social networking, AAA gaming, and design software characteristics is unique on mobile and RBLX stands apart from gaming peers with the scalable economics of traditional online marketplaces."

AAA is an informal classification used for video games produced and distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, usually having higher development and marketing budgets.

Roblox, Gee said "combines the communication utility of social networks with the monetization/engagement of AAA gaming and has democratized content creation such that any user is a creator."

Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng kicked off coverage of Roblox with a buy rating and a price target of $81 per share.

Ng said that "the creation and monetization of user-generated content effectively allows RBLX to outsource game development costs to its creators while retaining the economic upside with a diversified portfolio of content, reducing hit-risk."

Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak initiated coverage of Roblox with an overweight rating and and $80 price target.

"We believe RBLX is still in the early innings of its user opportunity, as its 33 [million] '20 daily active users (DAUs) represent just 6% penetration of ~500 [million] 5-24 year olds in its current countries," the analyst said.

Nowak said that industry leading engagement speaks to how the company is "blurring the lines between social and gaming."

Truist analyst Matthew Thornton initiated coverage of the company with a buy rating and a $78 price target, saying he believes that Roblox "has a strong and defensible position on account of substantial investment in safety and two mutually reinforcing network effects (social and content)."

Roblox made its stock market debut last month at $64.50 a share, above the reference price of $45 set by the New York Stock Exchange.