TSP Weekly Tech Stock Update—March 2, 2024
This Week: AMD shares surge, NTNX hits new record high, Snowflake names new CEO, ZS/ESTC/WDAY earnings reviews, CRWD/GTLB earnings previews, 2 new Monday bulls, Morgan Stanley likes HashiCorp & more.
Hello from Rob…
—Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, $202.64) this week surged 14.8% and hit a new record high of $202.72, surpassing some Wall Street price targets that were recently raised to the $200 level. Over the past 60 days, AMD earnings estimates have been on the rise. The 2024 consensus EPS estimate of $3.61 is up from $3.38 in early January. The Street-high estimate for this year is $4.89. For 2025, the consensus EPS estimate of $5.45 is up from $4.59 since early January. Now among the most bullish on AMD, Benchmark in February raised its price target to $245 from $187.
—Marvell Technology (MRVL, $77.61) shares on Friday jumped 8.3% and hit a new 52-week high of $78.09 ahead of the release of FQ4 (Jan.) results on Thursday, March 7. The chipmaker will provide an update on expanding AI exposure in its fast-growing datacenter business.
In FQ3 (Oct.), the datacenter unit grew 21% sequentially to $556 million, with the AI portion accounting for “well over” $200 million. Datacenter in the October quarter represented 39% of total revenue. For the January quarter, Marvell said it expects the datacenter unit to expand mid-30% sequentially and represent more than half of total revenue. Marvell’s optical products are the primary AI growth drivers.
For FY’25, investors are also interested in the prospects for Marvell’s custom AI ASIC unit. Marvell is one of the dominant custom silicon designers for datacenters. BofA recently boosted its Marvell price target to $80 from $68 because of the faster-than-expected growth in custom AI chips. Oppenheimer this week lifted its Marvell target to $80 from $70, saying it sees AI-related sales in FY’25 topping $1 billion.
*Inside This Issue: Snowflake’s Stumble In The Spotlight
—Paid subscribers will receive the March 2024 PDF of Tech-Stock Prospector (TSP #265) via email on Tuesday, March 12.
—Paid subscribers have access to the TSP Market Overview and TSP Portfolio Updates sections inside this issue.