Stephens' Matthew Marietta moves Flotek to firm's 'Best Idea,' sees upside of $23/share

In a report published Thursday, Stephens analyst Matthew Marietta maintained an Overweight rating on

, while raising the price target from $17 to $23. The stock was named Stephens' Best Idea. The company posted its 2Q results significantly ahead of expectations, driven by acceleration in CnF adoption. CnF volumes grew 76 percent sequentially, despite a 40 percent decline in activity in the NAM markets. Flotek Industries was able to reduce its CnF sales cycle and expand its customer footprint, while still sustaining positive cash flow. "Given these results, we believe FTK can actually continue to grow even in a flat rig count environment," analyst Marietta stated. In the US, sales of the company's flagship CNF product grew 113 percent sequentially, setting a new quarterly CnF sales record. "We view this as a strong endorsement by the industry as a whole, as operators continue to recognize and adopt the value adding proposition of CnF chemistry. CnF can be viewed as the standard value added chemistry by industry leaders by our work," the Stephens report added.