Beyond Meat soars on first earnings report as the plant-based-burger company's staggering post-IPO run rages on

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The Beyond Meat IPO at the Nasdaq Marketsite.

• Beyond Meat shares surged by nearly 30% Friday after the company released its first earnings results as a public company the evening prior.
• Some Wall Street commentary on the report was particularly upbeat, with Credit Suisse hiking its price target by $55 and upping its sales estimates.
• Watch Beyond Meat trade live.

Beyond Meat shares soared by nearly 30% Friday after the company released its first quarterly earnings report as a public company the evening prior.

The plant-based meat company, which debuted on the public market last month in a blockbuster initial public offering, reported a slightly smaller-than-expected loss per share and revenue that topped expectations.

Beyond Meat is in its early stages of growth, the company said, focusing on efforts to increase brand awareness, launch new products, and meet the demand for plant-based meat.

Shareholders in the 10-year-old company, based in El Segundo, California, have been rewarded since the May IPO. It was the first offering to soar by more than 100% in its first trading day this year, according to Dealogic, coming amid a slew of mixed new stock-market debuts. The stock is now up by around 400% from its IPO price of $25.

Read more: Beyond Meat soars 20% after crushing expectations for its first earnings report as a public company

Some Wall Street analysts were particularly upbeat about the results. Credit Suisse analysts, for their part, upped their price target to $125 from $70 a share and "significantly" hiked their sales estimates.

They were encouraged by Beyond Meat's 2019 revenue guidance that far exceeded their expectations. The new target is roughly in line with where shares were trading Friday.

"The stronger outlook has led us to increase our estimates for Beyond's revenue potential and the size of the plant based meat category's addressable market in the medium term," Credit Suisse said, adding A&W and Burger King's strong same-store sales growth in stores that tested plant-based meat products was a factor in its bullish outlook.

Read more: 3 factors are driving the plant-based 'meat' revolution as analysts predict companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods could explode into a $140 billion industry

"This is hugely important because it means that the brand is driving same-store foot traffic rather than just cannibalizing existing sales," they wrote. "McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants are likely to test plant-based meat products this year given their public comments."

Still, heightened competition in the plant-based-meat space poses the biggest risk to Beyond Meat's stock price, Credit Suisse analysts said.

Other Wall Street firms raised their own targets on the stock; JP Morgan upped its target to $120 from $97 a share.

Markets Insider's Carmen Reinicke contributed to this report.

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