Thursday, February 20, 2025

Nvidia: Analyst Chatter Ahead Of Next Week's Earnings Report (NVDA)

 From Yahoo Finance, February 20, skipping past the introduction:

.... Here are the vibes on the Street a few days ahead of Nvidia's earnings on February 26.

HSBC analyst Ryan Mellor

  • Rating: Reiterated Buy

  • Price Target: $175, down from $185

"Despite recent concerns over the long-term demand impact from DeepSeek's lower cost approach, most of the hyperscalers have actually revised up 2025 capex by 4%-26% during the earnings season, supporting our thesis that overall AI GPU demand outlook remains strong. Nevertheless, we are lowering our FY26 estimate for data center revenue by 11% to $209 billion on the back of lower NVL rack [Nvidia data center product] assumptions, but our FY26 data center revenue forecast still remains 14% above consensus of $184 billion. However, we believe there remains greater pressure for Nvidia to deliver stronger second half fiscal year momentum on the back of its B300/GB300 roadmap to see if there is potential room for further upside."

Keybanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh

  • Rating: Reiterated Overweight

  • Price Target: $190, up from $180

"While we do believe that manufacturing constraints are limiting shipments of GB200 NVL server racks, we believe this will be more than offset by the following: 1) given the lower initial manufacturing yields of GB200 NVL, we believe customers have been able to push out orders of GB200 and backfill with HGX-based B200 servers with x86 head nodes; 2) DeepSeek, as well as limited supply of Huawei's Ascend AI ASIC [custom chip], has created a surge in demand for H20 GPUs from China CSPs; 3) we believe Nvidia's customers, especially communications service providers, are financing its inventory at EMS providers, so effectively sell-in shipments from Nvidi to EMS are recognized as revenues. As such, we are raising estimates and our price target and believe Nvidia's strong results should alleviate any concerns that DeepSeek could derail near-term AI capex intensity."

Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah

  • Rating: Reiterated Buy

  • Price Target: $175, reiterated

"Big picture we believe that two to three year Street numbers remain low as our work with both customers and the Nvidia build ecosystem points [to] ... Nvidia GPU reaching 10 million to 12 million as hyperscalers look to increase their percentage on non-CPU compute to 50% plus in coming years (from ~10% currently). Remember … for Nvidia the story is accelerated compute + Gen AI, which means it is facing two $1.0 trillion compute market opportunities ahead of it in coming years, each of which is just at the very start."

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya

  • Rating: Reiterated Buy

  • Price Target: $190, reiterated

"We expect a modest fourth quarter beat but the first quarter outlook could face headwinds from Blackwell transition, Hopper declines and China restrictions," BofA analyst Vivek Arya wrote in a note on Tuesday. "The stock could be volatile post results, but we expect positive momentum to resume as investors look forward to Nvidia's leading new product pipeline (GB300, Rubin) and total addressable market expansion into robotics and quantum technologies at upcoming GTC conference (March 17)."....