Rating Quick Look | NVIDIA, TENCENT "Preferred"! "Buy"! BABA-SWR target price lowered

Bank of America: Maintains "Buy" rating on NVIDIA with a target price of $700

The bank estimates that under the strong long-term demand for the gaming downturn and data centers, NVIDIA has stronger growth opportunities in the future.

NVIDIA is the preferred choice in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI), and it is expected to generate approximately $100 billion in incremental free cash flow for the company in the next two years due to its industry-leading position. The bank estimates that $30 billion to $35 billion of this can be used for share repurchases (to offset dilution), and the remaining $65 billion to $70 billion can be used for organic and inorganic growth.

The bank believes that the relatively low trading multiples of NVIDIA are partly due to uncertainty about next year's growth prospects and the company's heavy reliance on hardware business, which is different from other large software peers with recurring revenue. The bank believes that the company's robust free cash flow situation can address these concerns and help expand its trading multiples to a historical median P/E ratio of 35 to 40 times. It is also expected that the company will consider strengthening cooperation or acquisitions with software companies to help traditional enterprise customers deploy, monitor, and analyze generative AI applications.

UBS: Gives Tencent a target price of HKD 418 and a "Buy" rating, still listed as a top pick

Investors are concerned about the impact and significance of the recent online game regulation draft. Tencent has been closely cooperating with regulatory agencies and believes that the market may have overreacted to the news. The authorities have responded quickly and proactively, supporting the messages and actions (game approvals).

Overall, Tencent's game portfolio is mainly composed of high daily active users (DAU) and low average revenue per user (ARPU), so the impact is controllable. More importantly, the regulations are still in the draft stage.

In terms of game growth, the bank believes that although Tencent continues to maintain the vitality of existing games, game growth will depend on the timing of new game releases. "Dream Star" has had a good start, and Tencent can leverage its social assets such as QQ and WeChat and collaborate with other short video platforms for promotion. More content is planned to be released during the Lunar New Year.

In terms of mini-games, Tencent is the largest casual game platform, with 400 million monthly active users (MAU), of which 50% of players do not overlap with basic application games. Therefore, it represents incremental high-margin revenue for Tencent. As game engines continue to improve, higher-quality mini-games will attract more players.

Morgan Stanley: Lowers Alibaba's target price to $85, the third quarter is another painful transition period

Morgan Stanley: Reiterates "Overweight" rating on Apple with a target price of $220

The bank believes that Apple's stock price has been oversold after underperforming the S&P 500 index by 9 percentage points last month. The recent uneven product demand and strong performance of the services business have brought volatility to investor sentiment, which is believed to be the reason for Apple's recent underperformance. However, signs indicate that Apple is accelerating the development of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), which increases the possibility of launching LLM-supported OS and device upgrade cycles. The bank is more optimistic about Apple's "Edge AI" opportunity and expects it to bring benefits this year.

The bank believes that for every 0.25-year (three-month) reduction in the iPhone replacement cycle, there is a potential 6% to 7% upside to Apple's 2025 fiscal year iPhone revenue forecast, and a 3% upside to earnings per share forecast (equivalent to about 18 cents). The report also suggests that Apple's developer conference in early June will be a key catalyst, as it may introduce new GenAI software features.

Citigroup downgraded Dada Group to "sell," citing uncertain business prospects.

Montreal Bank gave Meta Platforms an "in-line" initial rating with a target price of $397.

Citigroup downgraded Netflix to "neutral" with a target price of $500.

Dahua Jixian downgraded Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing to "hold" with a target price lowered to HKD 300.

The bank expects Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing's net profit margin to decline in the fourth quarter of last year due to weak core revenue. However, strong net interest income will offset this impact. Nevertheless, the disappointing recovery in average daily trading volume and the peak of net interest income bring uncertainty to profitability in 2024, resulting in a target price downgrade from HKD 370 to HKD 300.