Latest news with #Lipacis
Business Insider
03-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Qualcomm (QCOM) Receives a Rating Update from a Top Analyst
Evercore ISI analyst Mark Lipacis maintained a Hold rating on Qualcomm (QCOM – Research Report) yesterday and set a price target of $157.00. The company's shares closed yesterday at $139.81. Protect Your Portfolio Against Market Uncertainty Discover companies with rock-solid fundamentals in TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter. Receive undervalued stocks, resilient to market uncertainty, delivered straight to your inbox. Lipacis covers the Technology sector, focusing on stocks such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel. According to TipRanks, Lipacis has an average return of 20.4% and a 58.14% success rate on recommended stocks. In addition to Evercore ISI, Qualcomm also received a Hold from KeyBanc's John Vinh in a report issued on May 1. However, on the same day, Mizuho Securities maintained a Buy rating on Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM).
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia stock drops ahead of earnings as investors weigh potential Trump export rules, Blackwell delays
Nvidia (NVDA) stock continued its recent slide on Tuesday as investors weighed potential delays in the ramp-up of its AI Blackwell chips and a report of possible new export rules from the Trump administration. The stock dropped over 2% early Tuesday after Bloomberg News reported late Monday night that the Trump administration is looking to further tighten US export rules on the chip sector in an effort to restrict China's advancement in the AI space. Trump is looking to sanction specific Chinese companies and further restrict international companies from maintaining semiconductor gear in the country, Bloomberg reported. The news comes more than a month after Chinese firm DeepSeek introduced new, cost-efficient AI models that rocked US markets. Over the last five trading days, Nvidia stock has lost over 9%, a decline that comes ahead of the chipmaker's fourth quarter earnings report scheduled for Wednesday after the bell. Nvidia stock dropped 4% Friday and an additional 3% Monday as macroeconomic uncertainty surrounding Trump's trade policies stoked fears of inflation and drove down major stock indexes. Another challenge for Nvidia investors ahead of the report came in a note to investors on Monday from Evercore ISI analyst Mark Lipacis, who suggested Nvidia's ramp-up of its latest Blackwell AI chips could be delayed. 'Our checks suggested Blackwell ramp [was] pushed to mid 2025 from 1H25 [the first half of 2025]," he wrote. Lipacis added, 'We believe some hyperscalers will likely push some purchases from NVDA, however many noted demand for NVDA GPUs [graphics processing units, or AI chips] still outstrips supply, and absent B100 [Blackwell] availability, NVDA's current solution, H100 would be purchased instead.' Lipacis maintained his Buy rating on the stock. Nvidia did not immediately respond to Yahoo Finance's request for comment. Nvidia's Blackwell chips have faced overheating issues and glitches. The Information reported in December that some of Nvidia's top customers — Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), and Meta (META) — had cut orders of its Blackwell products due to those issues. Those four customers alone purchased an estimated $44 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs in the 2024 calendar year, according to a DA Davidson analysis. Still, Wall Street analysts maintained their bullish outlooks on the stock ahead of its fourth quarter earnings call Wednesday, despite concerns related to export controls, DeepSeek, and delays of its Blackwell chips. DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria said commentary on Blackwell delays should be taken 'with a grain of salt.' 'Since there is so much excess demand for Blackwell, NVIDIA is rationing orders which may seem like a delay in production even if it is not,' he told Yahoo Finance in an email. Luria holds a Neutral rating and $135 price target on Nvidia stock. Truist Securities' William Stein also addressed the Blackwell concerns in a note to investors late Monday: 'Since NVDA announced Blackwell at its 2024 GTC event, our contacts have been talking about volume shipments as if they were always right around the corner, waiting for a yield improvement or a design challenge to be addressed.' Stein added: 'NVDA is still the AI leader and the one to own.' For Nvidia's fourth quarter, analysts expect the chipmaker to report adjusted earnings per share rising roughly 64% from the prior year to $0.84 and revenue jumping 73% to $38.2 billion. Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Bluesky @ Email her at
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Intel could be worth more than $200 billion if it breaks up
The rumor mill is spinning overtime on struggling Intel (INTC) as the tech icon looks at ways to create shareholder value. Chip rivals Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) and Broadcom (AVGO) are each eying deals with Intel that could break up the company, the WSJ reported over the weekend. Broadcom is reportedly looking to gain control of Intel's lucrative chip design and marketing business. Taiwan Semiconductor is reportedly studying controlling some or all of Intel's chipmaking plants. A spokesperson for Intel didn't immediately return Yahoo Finance's request for comment. A breakup could extract a good bit of value for long suffering Intel shareholders, estimates Evercore analyst Mark Lipacis. In an analysis of Intel's business, Lipacis said Intel is conservatively worth $167 billion or $38.24 a share. Intel's stock currently trades at $24.66, down more than 47% over the past year. The stock has crashed 65% in the last five years to a market cap of $102 billion. Using more robust projections of financial performance for each business, Lipacis estimates Intel could be worth $237 billion or $54.18 a share. A path to a deal could be tough, says Lipacis. "Depending on how a deal is structured, it might require regulatory approval from countries around the world, including China. Also, Intel has historically designed its factories to make x86 CPUs, so it is not clear if Intel's factories would be able to make external chips efficiently with its current physical plant. Finally, Intel's foundry business reported a 76% operating loss in 2024, vs Taiwan Semiconductor's 45% operating margin," he explained. Wall Street analysts at Raymond James, Bank of America, and Bernstein echoed concerns over regulatory hurdles and antitrust issues, with Bank of America's Vivek Arya saying 'any potential INTC split could be time-consuming and complicated.' Plus, any deal involving TSMC and Intel's manufacturing business would face tight constraints given the rules of Intel's CHIPS Act funding, which requires Intel to retain ownership of more than 50% of its foundry, Arya wrote in a note to investors Tuesday morning. The Trump administration 'could be wary of a foreign entity completely taking over an iconic US-firm that has deep involvement with US Department of Defense customers,' Arya wrote. Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri said in a note that '[A] better outcome for [the] U.S. government would be to work with TSM separately to expand its U.S. manufacturing footprint.' Intel was awarded $3 billion in US government funding in September to manufacture chips for the military. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said Broadcom would be a good candidate to take over Intel's products business. "Hock [Tan] has shown the ability to take a hatchet to costs, ruthlessly, while still preserving innovation,' Rasgon wrote of Broadcom's CEO in a note Tuesday morning. Intel has endured a challenging few months. The tech icon parted ways with embattled CEO Pat Gelsinger on Dec. 1. Gelsinger led aggressive efforts to turn around the troubled US chipmaker for more than three years. He slashed thousands of jobs, improved costs, secured CHIPS Act funding, built chip foundries, and promised fast AI chips that could compete with Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD). Intel named CFO David Zinsner and former head of client computing Michelle Johnston Holthaus as the interim co-CEOs. Holthaus was also named Intel Products CEO. Intel will likely fill the CEO role by bringing in a top name from outside the company, Wall Street sources have told Yahoo Finance since Gelsinger's departure. Any permanent CEO will have to repair trust with investors after missing financial targets, and make a decision on the foundry business. It also requires immediately stabilizing the financials. That's in addition to likely exploring a breakup of the company to drive shareholder value. Intel's fourth quarter sales fell 7% year over year to $14.3 billion. Net earnings plunged 76%. The company forecasts it will only break even on the profit line this year. Whatever happens to Intel, it will be important for the US. "Well, it'd be great for the United States if their process, technology arm could be a credible alternative to Taiwan Semiconductor and Samsung. They're trying to do that, but that takes time and a lot of capital so that is a very, very hard thing," Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates told me on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid podcast (video above; listen in below). This embedded content is not available in your region. Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Three reasons why Nvidia is underperforming the S&P 500 going into its earnings
Nvidia (NVDA) investors are navigating through an un-Nvidia-like start to the year. Shares of the AI chip darling are off by 3.3% this year, lagging all three major US indices, which have notched gains. The stock has underperformed the S&P 500 (^GSPC) by 9% in the past month. Ahead of Nvidia's results expected on Feb. 26, the Street has been out and about explaining the surprising weakness to clients and mostly defending the stock. In a note on Monday, EvercoreISI analyst Mark Lipacis points to three reasons for the weakness after talking with clients. They include: 1) DeepSeek lowers AI demand in aggregate, 2) DeepSeek shifts AI compute-cycles away from Nvidia GPUs and to ASICs [custom chips], and 3) Blackwell chip delays. Despite the concerns, Lipacis says he would be a buyer of the stock into Nvidia's earnings. The analyst reiterated an Out-perform rating and $190 price target. "Nvidia remains the platform of choice for hyperscalers' customers. The robustness of its software ecosystem and breadth of its development community put it 5-10 years ahead of anything else in the market. AMD (AMD) and Amazon (AMZN) AWS ecosystems are a distant #2 and #3," Lipacis explained. The concerns about Nvidia aren't unfounded, however. China-based DeepSeek surprised markets in late January after unveiling RI, its AI model that its says gives a ChatGPT-esque performance at a cheaper price tag. RI cost a reported $5.6 million to build a base model, compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars incurred at US-based companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Fears mounted instantly that US companies are overspending on AI infrastructure, which includes Nvidia chips. 'Conventional wisdom all of last year was that training amazing models was going to be possible for only a handful of companies,' Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy told me on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid podcast. 'What DeepSeek has done over the past few weeks is shatter that belief by saying they can train a model for $6 million.' This embedded content is not available in your region. Meanwhile, Amazon has announced an $8 billion partnership with Anthropic to enter the AI chip space, and Google (GOOG) has dropped a supercomputer with an AI chip called Willow. With those moves, it's evident Big Tech companies want in on Nvidia's hefty market share. What's more, Broadcom (AVGO) and Marvell (MRVL) have released advanced custom chips. Watch: what Bill Gates thought of Steve Jobs Lipacis isn't alone in staying bullish on Nvidia into its earnings, despite less-than-favorable news flow this year. Bank of America's Vivek Arya reiterated the chipmaker as his top pick for 2025 last wee. Arya has a $190 price target, which assumes about 57% upside from current trading levels. It's one of the highest price targets on Nvidia on the Street. "The [earnings] call could mark the trough in investor sentiment as: 1) we expect Nvidia to reassure on Blackwell execution, 2) Signal confidence around fiscal year 2026/calendar year 2025 with 60%+ year over year growth in data center sales (still leaves headroom vs. Taiwan Semiconductor's call for AI to grow 100%+ year over year in calendar year 2025 end), and 3) create excitement ahead of flagship GTC Conf. (Mar 17) where focus shifts to solid pipeline (GB300, Rubin), and physical AI (robotics)," Arya wrote in the note to clients. The Street hasn't baked sector worries into Nvidia's financial estimates just yet. Data from Yahoo Finance shows there have been five upward revisions to Nvidia's EPS estimates 2025 earnings over the past 30 days. There have also been seven upward revisions in the past 30 days to Nvidia's EPS estimates for 2026. — Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram and on LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email Sign in to access your portfolio
