Goldman Sachs believes the headwinds around cloud-based bank software company nCino are clearing, creating an attractive entry point into the underperforming stock. Analyst Adam Hotchkiss upgraded nCino shares to buy from neutral on Wednesday, raising his price target to $42 from $34, indicating about 30% upside potential from where the stock closed Tuesday. NCino has lagged the other stocks in Goldman’s bank techology coverage by almost half a percentage point year to date; by comparison, the other small- and mid-cap bank tech stocks have managed to outperform the S & P 500 by 0.14 of a point, Hotchkiss noted. However, the analyst believes nCino is approaching turn around. An imminent easing of Federal Reserve interest rate policy means mortgage customer churn has likely already peaked, and the company continues to expand its profit margins and see upsides from a renewed partnership with Salesforce , Hotchkiss wrote. “Combined with nCino’s innovation track record (including AI), partner ecosystem, and deep-rooted relationships with large [financial institutions, these] have the potential to close the performance gap with peers in what we have consistently viewed as a strong underlying environment for bank IT spend,” Hotchkiss wrote said in a report to clients. Shares advanced more than 3% Wednesday. Year to date, the stock is down more than 4%. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
