Here is the best roundup on the internet, Barron's Tech Trader Daily's Tiernan Ray does the heavy lifting:
Nvidia Soars 23%: Imagine Every Query on the Internet a GPU Query, Says CEO Huang
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) are up $15.24, or almost 23%, at $83.01, adding to pre-market gains and gains last night, after it handily beat fiscal Q3 expectations and forecast this quarter’s revenue substantially above expectations as well, with strength across many parts of the business including video gaming and artificial intelligence, or A.I.
In a phone call last night following the report and the conference call, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told me that the “big idea” of it all “is that here’s a graphics chip company that started in PC graphics and transformed itself into a GPU computing company, and its platform has ignited this wave of A.I.”
“We are a computing company that’s able to innovate all the way through system software and libraries through to applications like self-driving cars, at the center of one of the most important revolutions the computer industry has seen,” he said.
I asked Huang about a comment from Joe Moore of Morgan Stanley, who asked him on the call how many GPU chips could possibly be sold for “inference,” by which he meant the part of A.I. that answers queries spontaneously, rather than the slower part of A.I., “training,” that prepares the skills of computers over time. It was a clear attempt by Moore to gauge whether Nvidia’s chips will see higher volumes of unit shipments as real-time use starts to match off-line or non-real-time use.
Huang avoided committing himself, instead answering indirectly that many of the 5,000 to 10,000 “nodes” of cloud computing will increasingly use a GPU to answer queries on the Internet.
When I asked Huang to expand upon that, he replied, “I believe that every single query today, whether it’s a search, or playing music, or sharing something, every single internet query will be an A.I. transaction.”
As a result, “Every single thing we do on the Internet will go through a few billion floating-point operations per second,” which could mean that every query, by implication, becomes a GPU query.
I asked whether this was merely his speculation, or whether the “hyper-scale” operators — Amazon.com (AMZN), Facebook (FB), Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google, etc. — are on board.
“I believe they believe as I do, not because they told me, but because we have a shared belief,” replied Huang....MUCH MORE
From the Street today, there are no ratings changes, that I can see, but numerous price targets, heading above $90 to $100.
Bullish!
Craig Ellis, B. Riley: Reiterates a Buy rating, and raises his price target to $100 from $85. “F3Q17 print and F4Q17 outlook were stellar [...] We believe explosive growth in 80% of the portfolio is just getting started, with revenues rising another 75%+ by C20/F21 to $12.0B. In that time Gaming could double and Auto and Data Center could each climb 3x or more, though it will take time for SS modeling to reflect that potential. Tailwinds are stellar Pascal product execution which augurs well for F18’s Volta release and ramp, Gaming’s sustainable‐looking unit and ASP growth at 1.5x T5‐year CAGR’s of ~10% for 20%+ blended yy growth, Data Center’s broad competitive moat in deep learning where relevant workloads stretch into ever more industry and customer verticals, and Auto’s market leading ADAS solution with its significant performance, time to market, and tier‐1 design win advantages.” He raises his 2018 EPS estimate to $3.40 from $2.46.
Steven Smigle, Raymond James: Reiterates a Strong Buy rating, and raises his price target to $90 from $75. “We believe the strong F3Q results and F4Q guide establish a new baseline for performance – NVIDIA is just now beginning to fully realize the benefits of its platform strategy, executing across all target markets. Street models likely move meaningfully higher today, and given consistent growth, profitability, and more than $7/share in cash, we believe shares could break out above historical multiples going forward. We continue to believe NVIDIA represents a unique long-term secular growth story with a leading position in key verticals – and no signs of slowing momentum.” Smigle raises his 2018 estimates to $7.8 billion in revenue and $2.45 per share from a prior $6.3 billion and $1.60....
