Overstock.com Inc. (Nasdaq:OSTK), an online retailer that is seeking to sell that business to focus on the use of blockchain technology, offers investors strong potential for share-price appreciation, according to an equity research analyst who tracks the company closely.

The most promising opportunities are emerging from Overstock’s tZERO business unit, which recently announced a joint venture with BOX Digital to operate an exchange for listing regulated and publicly traded security tokens. “Significant value” exists in Overstock’s investment in tZERO, which accounts for $49 of the $100 stock price target placed on the company by Tom Forte, a senior research analyst at investment firm D.A. Davidson.

The joint venture announced on Tuesday, May 22, with BOX Digital, caused D.A. Davidson to affirm its “buy” rating on Overstock and its $100 price target, as well as recommend that investors purchase the company’s shares. Five catalysts for Overstock’s share price identified by Forte are a sustained rise in its e-commerce sales; the sale of its home e-commerce business; completion of an ongoing initial coin offering (ICO); sale of a minority stake in tZERO after completion of the ICO; and the market fully valuing its Medici Ventures portfolio.

Forte’s $100 share-price target for Overstock includes $48 per share for its retail e-commerce business, which is seeking a buyer. The e-commerce business likely will be sold before the end of 2018, Forte told me in a June 5 phone interview. Overstock’s share price jumped 5.75 percent that day to close at $35.85.

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Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce,Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz.