UPDATE: ServiceNow Upgraded by Baird After Exceptional 4Q, Trading Up 19 Percent

In Thursday's morning flurry of rating changes, analyst Steven Ashley of Baird upgraded ServiceNow NOW from Neutral to Outperform, bumping price target to $70 from $55.

The report notes, "Billings growth yr-yr of 70% yr-yr exceeded consensus expectations of 56%. Initial 2014 revenue guidance was nicely above consensus. We believe the decision to carve out the Platform business (10% of total) from the core Application Bundle during 2013 will allow ServiceNow to more effectively monetize and grow that product by building a dedicated ecosystem. NOW is vying to become the next major SaaS platform vendor."

NOW is currently up 19.6% from its Wednesday close of $57.60, trading around the $68.65 level