Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest analyst picks you may have missed since yesterday: upgrades at Nvidia, Avery Dennison, Fulcrum Therapeutics, and Louisiana-Pacific.
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Nvidia picks up trio of upgrades as stock surges on a blowout Q2
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) was upgraded by three Wall Street firms after the company's Q2 results and new guidance smashed analyst expectations. Shares surged more than 8% premarket today.
Stifel, upgrading the company to Buy from Hold with a significantly higher price target of $600 (vs. the prior $440), called the quarter "exceptional," commenting:
"While we have long viewed NVDA as the primary beneficiary of the increasing investments being made on large language models/generative AI training clusters, we underestimated the opportunity related to the potential shift of $1 trillion of installed data center infrastructure from general purpose compute to accelerated compute architectures."
Meanwhile, Exane BNP Paribas upgraded to Outperform from Neutral with a price target of $745, and WestPark added its own Buy stamp with a $690 price target.
Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs maintained its Buy rating and sharply raised its own price target on the shares, to $605 from the prior $495, saying, "we expect Nvidia to maintain its status as the accelerated computing industry standard for the foreseeable future." And {0||Morgan Stanley}} - which maintained its own Overweight rating on the stock - called the quarter "exceptional," adding:
"Last quarter was the first time in semis history that we saw a company guide revenues $4 bn above consensus; with admittedly higher expectations this quarter, NVDA did it again, with its data center business growing more than 3x in 6 months."
The company’s Q2 EPS came in at $2.70, $0.63 better than consensus, and revenue of $13.51 billion was well ahead of the $11.13B expectations. For Q3, the company issued stunning revenue guidance of $16B, whereas the Street was looking for $12.61B. And the company also announced a new $25B share buyback plan.
Avery Dennison earns an upgrade at UBS, shares gain
UBS upgraded Avery Dennison (NYSE:AVY) to Buy from Neutral and raised its price target to $222.00 from $184.00, as reported in real-time on InvestingPro. As a result, shares gained more than 3% yesterday.
The firm noted that Avery’s stock price has mostly hovered between $160 and $190 for about two years, but it could move beyond this range driven by anticipated positive year-over-year earnings growth in Q4/23 and 2024, RFID sales turning back to over 20% growth in H2/23, and stabilization of Base Labels & Ticket/Tag businesses.
More upgrades
Fulcrum Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FULC) earned two upgrades after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted the clinical hold on the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for FTX-6058 for the potential treatment of sickle-cell disease (SCD). Shares surged nearly 12% yesterday, adding to a 38% gain on Tuesday.
H.C. Wainwright upgraded the company to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $14.00.
Our conviction is centered on the potential of positive news flow from ‘6058, slowly alleviating negative prior headwinds stemming from the FDA’s hold (risk of hematological malignancies) and high management turnover rate.
Meanwhile, Stifel upgraded the company to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $11.00 from $4.00.
Louisiana-Pacific (NYSE:LPX) shares gained more than 3% yesterday after DA Davidson upgraded the company to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $76.00.
The firm believes that Louisiana-Pacific's recent weakness, which is attributed to the adjustment in short-term prospects for the Siding business, creates a compelling entry point.
We continue to believe the company can gain share with their SmartSide products over the medium-term, while a 2+ year expected timeline until the next Siding conversion project, moderating inflation, and the lapping of growth related headwinds leaves the company unencumbered to drive a recovery in margins.
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