SPLK at 156.90 feels stuck in the mud right now. The past few months have been ridiculously flat if you check the chart, just 156.90 over and over. So either everyone is asleep or there’s a big move coming if something shakes loose.

I’m still taking a bullish stance here, setting my target at 172.00. The main thing is that Splunk (SPLK) keeps deepening its relationships with big enterprise customers and, love it or hate it, that recurring software revenue is sticky. I think they’re positioned to cross sell and upsell in a way that should push growth a bit higher than people expect. Also, if sentiment shifts back toward data and analytics plays, SPLK is set to ride that wave.

What could mess it up? Management’s guidance last quarter felt conservative to me, so there’s a real possibility that the next earnings is kind of a non event and the stock stays dead money for another quarter. Macro headwinds are always lurking too, obviously. Still, if they can land a couple more major enterprise deals or announce a partner integration, that could be the spark. Next earnings is on my radar as a near term catalyst if they beat (or even just guide a touch up), I expect momentum to finally break up from this weird stasis.

Bottom line, I’m in for a move to 172.00 over the next 8 weeks, but I’m not betting the farm. Just feels like SPLK has more upside than down from here, with a little patience.