Autonomous vehicle technology stock Ouster jumped Friday, adding to its 13% rally since reporting first-quarter results last week. The company specializes in sensing equipment called Lidar — for light detection and ranging — a key enabler for autonomous vehicle systems, as AI and autonomous driving vehicles have recently dominated headlines.
Ouster stock gained 11%, hitting an intraday high of 14.15, during market action Friday in above-than-average volume. The Lidar stock fell 3.6% to 11.66 Thursday. OUST stock is up 52% in 2024 and has advanced 13% since Q1 earnings on May 9, according to MarketSurge charts.
OUST stock is extended from an official buy point of 8.56 from a cup base.
Last week, OUST reported better-than-expected first-quarter financials and guided slightly above Q2 expectations. Following earnings, the lidar stock jumped 20% and Craig-Hallum analyst Richard Shannon raised the firm's price target on OUST stock to 13, up from 10, with a buy rating.
Meanwhile, Rosenblatt adjusted its price target to 17, up from 12, last Friday. Since May 10, four analysts have revised quarterly EPS estimates upward, which suggest a trend that earnings may be 32% higher than the general consensus, according to FactSet analysis.
Ouster makes high resolution digital lidar sensors that offer three-dimensional vision for machinery, vehicles and robots. The company was founded in 2015 and in late 2022 merged with fellow lidar stock Velodyne. It went public on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2021, via a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Colonnade Acquisition.
Lidar has been described as the eyes of automation. It can be utilized for everything from a car using adaptive cruise control to a robot training with AI.
Lidar Stock And Tesla's Autonomous Driving
As U.S. lidar stock OUST surged Friday, Reuters reported that Tesla has been developing plans for a China data center to train its algorithm for full self-driving autonomous vehicles.
Tesla has been focusing on AI investment, full-self driving and its "robotaxi" vehicle in recent months. This has included apparent efforts to roll out its autonomous driving in China.
Meanwhile Baidu claimed Thursday morning that its autonomous ride-hailing service, Apollo Go, offered 826,000 rides in Q1. As of April, the total number of autonomous rides was more than 6 million, according to Baidu.
Several publicly traded companies are selling vision systems for autonomous vehicles and other applications. They include Aeva Technologies, AEye, Arbe Robotics, Cepton, Innoviz Technologies, Luminar, MicroVision and Mobileye.
Ouster stock has an 85 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. The Lidar stock also has a 98 Relative Strength Rating and a 63 EPS Rating.
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