A viral TikTok trend from fitness influencer Ashton Hall took the world by storm on March 20 — and put Saratoga Spring Water into the limelight.
Google searches for the brand skyrocketed in tandem with the viral trend’s popularity. While precisely estimating the direct impact of increased exposure isn’t easy to do, X user DapperDomo quantified the earned media value (EMV) of the exposure at roughly $1.8 million.
So, how did this translate to price action? Saratoga Spring Water is a Primo Brands product. Primo Brands stock (NYSE: PRMB) was trading at $32.40 when Hall’s clip went viral.
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On March 31, PRMB shares closed at $35.49, equating to a 9.54% rally. In the pre-market trading session on April 1, the price of PRMB stock had receded slightly, down to $35, which has cut the rally down to 8.02%.
All in all, however, Primo Brands does not truly qualify as a meme stock. Although it has seen a large influx of interest following increased visibility, it lacks the dedicated communities that true meme stocks, such as GameStop have.
We won’t see an incredible short-squeeze or trading with no regard for fundamentals here, but that doesn’t mean that PRMB stock isn’t a buying opportunity. Let’s examine it on its own merits.
Primo Brands earned Wall Street’s confidence — even before Saratoga Spring Water trend
As noted by Finbold on March 25, the average 12-month price forecast set by Wall Street analysts for Saratoga Sprint Water’s parent company is $40.67. That figure implies a pretty hefty 14.60% upside compared to prices as of press time.
At present, 7 equity researchers track PRMB shares and issue ratings for them — and all 7 issue ‘Buy’ ratings. Perhaps even more notably, there have been no analyst revisions following the viral trend — so this is Wall Street’s outlook without factoring in the added publicity.
So, what about past results? In 2024, the business posted three earnings beats and one earnings miss, although earnings per share (EPS) marked consistent year-over-year (YoY) growth.
In addition, technical indicators paint a rather bullish picture — as PRMB’s 50-day small moving average (SMA), currently at $32.92 is significantly above its 200-day MA, which sits at $27.26, indicating strong upward momentum.
There is one last factor to consider — supply and demand dynamics. Back on March 10, a major shareholder, One Rock Capital Partners, announced a secondary offering of 45 million Primo Brands shares.
The business purchased 4 million units of its own stock with the cash it had on hand, but quite tellingly, the development did not depress prices — to the contrary, prices increased from $29.89 to the aforementioned $32.40 by the time of the viral trend. With all that said, both technical and fundamental analysis paint a rather optimistic picture regarding Primo Brands’ future prospects.
Featured image via Shutterstock
