Nvidia ‘s powerhouse run is far from over, according to Loop Capital. Analyst Ananda Baruah initiated coverage of the chipmaker with a buy rating and Wall Street price target high of $1,200, representing 65% upside from Thursday close. NVDA 1Y mountain Nvidia shares over the last year “We’re gonna party like it’s 1995!” he said, referring to the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. The chipmaker added about 2% before the bell, building on a roughly 47% rally since 2024 started. The stock has surged 230% over the last year as investors bet on its artificial intelligence prospects. Underpinning Baruah’s price target is the belief that Nvidia is at the “front end” of a multiyear cycle as hyperscalers transition to greater graphics processing unit compute. He likened this phenomenon to the “hues of the internet buildout,” when adoption expanded fivefold between 1995 and 2001. This phenomenon should contribute to material upside to consensus estimates over the next two fiscal years, with Baruah estimating that Nvidia could be readying itself for a $150 billion GPU opportunity in 2023 alone. “While we acknowledge additional silicon providers (private as well as AMD & INTC ) and Hyperscale specific internal silicon solutions will be coming online over the next few years, our work suggests NVDA’s largest customers will be taking everything NVDA can give them in 2024 and 2025,” he wrote. Heightened IT spending and budgets as companies hunt for ways to harness AI as they convert more data to the cloud should also bode well for Nvidia, Baruah said, noting that budgets are expected to increase to 45% from 30% in 2023. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting
