By Michael Elkins
Susquehanna reiterated a positive rating on NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) and raised their price target on the stock to $265.00 (from $185.00) ahead of the tech company’s 4Q earnings report. NVIDIA will report 4Q results after the market closes on Wednesday, February 22.
Analysts wrote in a note, “While Data Center guidance from Intel and AMD were poor for 1H, NVIDIA has an opportunity to outperform peers given the momentum behind AI and newly launched applications like ChatGPT. While hyperscale capex has contracted of late, commentary suggests continued investment in AI (Meta) which could point to sustained spending for H100/A100. While Pro Viz has been digesting inventory over the past few quarters, and may last into March, we expect a restocking acceleration at some point in 2023. Lastly, Auto could demonstrate continued momentum given read-throughs from competitors such as Qualcomm.”
Given their commentary last quarter, the analysts believe NVIDIA will guide opex relatively flat (until the demand environment improves). They note a much higher bar for execution as NVIDIA has significantly outperformed the SOX since its last print.
The Street is expecting C4Q22 revenue to be up +1% QOQ, slightly below typical seasonality of up +2%, and in-line with management guidance of up +1.2% at the midpoint.
Shares of NVDA are down 1.88% in mid-day trading on Thursday.