NVIDIA stock skyrocketed to a new high on Friday after the chip maker smashed earnings estimates, triggering a series of price target increases from analysts. However, it didn’t take long for things to turn around, as today the shares are tumbling. They declined by as much as 4.18% to $84.29 during regular trading hours today despite the ongoing flow of bullish analyst calls.
Fresh price target increases for NVIDIA
Barclays analysts pushed their target for NVIDIA stock to $72 from $54 per share and upgraded it from Underweight to Equal-weight following last week’s earnings report. The chip maker killed Wall Street’s estimates for its most recently completed quarter, posting earnings of 83 cents per share, compared to the consensus of 57 cents per share. Revenue also beat the Street at $2 billion, compared to the consensus of $1.69 billion.
Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis admitted that he was “on the wrong side of this one all year” and upgraded NVIDIA stock because the chip maker outperformed in multiple segments. Although he doesn’t believe key competitor Advanced Micro Devices presents any serious threat, he’s on the sidelines until he sees what next year brings.
AMD not participating
MKM Partners analyst Ian Ing also said on Friday that AMD doesn’t pose much of a threat to NVIDIA because it’s “not really participating on emerging.” He referred to the competitive environment as “extremely benign” for NVIDIA as AMD does not have the resources that are needed to address new opportunities, especially in “emerging machine learning applications.”
The chip maker also offered some proof points that Hyperscale cloud customers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure and AliCloud are adopting its GPUs. It also secured a key customer in Tesla for autonomous driving.
Ing increased his price target for NVIDIA from $74 to $87 and reiterated his Buy rating on the chip maker but also said he feels that the company isn’t growing its capital return plan as fast as it is growing its fundamentals. He called the chip maker’s capital return increases “somewhat frugal” and a “high class problem.”
Other price target increases for NVIDIA stock
Citigroup analysts also raised their price target for NVIDIA stock, moving from $90 to $100 per share. Also Stifel analysts raised their target from $64 to $76 per share and maintained their Hold rating.
Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Seymore raised his target from $65 to $75 but maintained his Hold rating on the stock, saying that although he missed the rally in the chip maker’s shares, he thinks that expectations are already high and that any future increase in the stock price will have to come from growth in earnings per share instead of valuation expansion.
Analysts from multiple firms have been upping their price targets for NVIDIA stock for months, as the chip maker has captured the fancy of investors.
