Broadcom, Astera Labs, Marvell get price target boosts at Morgan Stanley
Dec. 20, 2024 8:37 AM ET
By: Chris Ciaccia, SA News Editor
 J Studios
Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), Astera Labs (NASDAQ: ALAB) and Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) were among the semiconductor stocks seeing price target changes at Morgan Stanley on Friday, with the investment firm turning the page to 2025.
"[The] industry view remains attractive, as AI strength now dominates the index weightings, and other areas are bottoming out slowly," analysts at the firm wrote in a note to clients.
"We expect to finish the year with a very strong Blackwell ramp, share gains vs. [application specific integrated circuits], and several aspects that should endure beyond CY25 even if the [artificial general intelligence] 'arms race' decelerates," the analysts added. "Other AI plays all offer promise, including [application specific integrated circuits], but we would still keep nearer term expectations in check."
The analysts raised their price target on Broadcom to $265 from $233; Astera Labs went to $142 from $94 and Marvell went to $120 from $102. They also tweaked their price targets on Nvidia ( NVDA) to $166 from $168 and AMD ( AMD) to $158 from $169.
They have Overweight ratings on Broadcom, Astera Labs and Nvidia, and Equal-Weight ratings on AMD and Marvell.
The analysts said they liked Broadcom's growing customer list and the potential for Ethernet growth in AI, while Astera Labs has a "broad" range of connectivity oriented products that are "pervasive" across merchant and application specific integrated circuit suppliers.
Conversely, they said they are on the sidelines for Marvell and AMD currently, but "the prospects for AI overall remain bright." Nvidia is the firm's top pick in the space.
In addition to the aforementioned companies, Morgan Stanley also highlighted Ambarella ( AMBA) as its "preferred" small and mid-cap semiconductor stock on the belief that "the company's core Edge AI technology is starting to turn to revenue."
It also said Western Digital ( WDC) offers investors a "very compelling risk reward" with the NAND spinoff set for next year. |
