UPDATE: Topeka Capital Markets Initiates Splunk at Buy on Big Data Positioning

Topeka Capital Markets initiated coverage on Splunk SPLK with a Buy rating and a $38.25 price target. Topeka Capital Markets commented, "Splunk is an emerging software platform vendor focused on turning machine data into realtime operational intelligence, which we believe represents an exciting play on the trend toward Big Data. Big Data remains in the early stages of development and most similar to the nascent stages of cloud computing a few years ago. Over the past four years, Splunk has grown sales by 91% per annum. We view Splunk as a high-risk, high-return stock that we believe has a disruptive technology platform that taps into the Big Data phenomenon. We believe Splunk represents one of the few pure plays on Big Data." Splunk closed at $29.11 on Thursday.