Tuesday evening, Red Hat beat the Street. And so began the night of the red-hot Hatters as the race to buy Red Hat shares began.

Starting at 3:55 a.m. Wednesday, Wall Street analysts began jumping on the Red Hat bandwagon just hours after investors drove up Hatter shares by 10 percent.

By noon Wednesday, 13 different analysts had either raised their target prices for Red Hat or upgraded the stock to “Buy.”

Just before Wednesday’s close, shares traded at $98.855, up $8.90 or 9.89 percent. More than 8 million shares were traded – five times the average daily volume.

Just after the Tuesday evening news broke, Technology Business Research published analysis praising the Linux world leader.

From cloud offerings to its Linux arsenal, Red Hat continues to hit on all cylinders even though some analysts had recently expressed reservations about how the cloud might hurt the Hatters.

Now …

“It has become increasingly clear Red Hat is effectively capitalizing on the opportunity presented by enterprise customers increasingly making the push to convert their existing IT infrastructure footprint to a hybrid cloud-based environment,” wrote Stifel analyst Brad Reback.

Buyers drove Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) shares up more than 10 percent to just short of $100. At a peak of $99.75, RHT came within six dollars of its all-time high dating back to 1999.

By the way, Red Hat’s 52-week-low is just shy of $70.

If you had bought RHT then …. you might not need a job today.

The ardor for RHT slipped a bit from the near-$100 high, but all the positive endorsements from analysts has the Street players thinking that a record stock prices are just ahead.

Here is a minute-by-minute recap of the Red Hat surge as compiled by StreetInsider.com:

Red Hat (RHT)

  • Jun 21, 2017 10:47 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $98 at MKM Partners Following 1Q
  • Jun 21, 2017 09:51 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $112 at Rosenblatt Following 1Q
  • Jun 21, 2017 09:19 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $105 at BofA/Merrill Lynch Following 1Q
  • Jun 21, 2017 09:17 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $105 at Oppenheimer on 1Q Beat; ‘Strong Results Show Diversification Gains’
  • Jun 21, 2017 08:23 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $127 at Drexel Hamilton Following 1Q Report
  • Jun 21, 2017 07:49 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $98 at Morgan Stanley
  • Jun 21, 2017 06:55 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $109 at Mizuho Securities on 1Q18 Beat; ‘Strong Performance Likely to Help Sustain Stock Price Momentum’
  • Jun 21, 2017 06:26 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $110 at Deutsche Bank
  • Jun 21, 2017 06:10 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $105 at Cowen
  • Jun 21, 2017 05:17 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $97 at Goldman Sachs
  • Jun 21, 2017 05:07 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $120 at BTIG
  • Jun 21, 2017 05:01 AM: Stifel Upgrades Red Hat (RHT) to Buy, “Hybrid Cloud Lifting Red Hat to New Heights”
  • Jun 21, 2017 03:55 AM: Red Hat (RHT) PT Raised to $115 at Pacific Crest

(See more at: https://www.streetinsider.com/stock_lookup_news.php?q=RHT)

Mark down June 20 as an incredible day in the history of the Hatters.