Canaccord Sees Pandora Media Q1 Meet Or Beat

may redeem itself in the eyes of investors with solid first-quarter results, an analyst said Monday. The Internet radio service closed at $16.39, up 0.43 percent, and has yet to fully recover from a 20 percent plunge in its stock price after missing fourth-quarter expectations last month. Canaccord's Michael Graham said the company is on track to meet or beat expectations for the period ending March 31. "It will likely be positive for the stock," given what Graham called broadly negative investor sentiment following the earnings miss, as well as uncertainty surrounding pending decisions from the Copyright Royalties Board. The board, appointed by the Library of Congress, will set royalty rates for the industry through 2020, in a decision expected at the end of this year. Graham reiterated a Buy rating and $28 target on Pandora, and said Pandora's forecast for the first quarter revenue was most likely conservative, "given that they had just missed" for the fourth quarter. The company has forecast that its first-quarter advertising revenue will be 21 percent below the seasonally strong fourth quarter. If accurate, the prediction would tie with the company's worst first quarter in the past three years, Graham said. In the year-ago first quarter, Pandora's ad revenue fell 13 percent from the preceding period. Building on recent market research from Tritron Digital, Graham believes total listener hours for Pandora will grow in the first quarter by 3.8 percent sequentially, versus Pandora's 5.7 percent sequential growth reported last year.