Rating Quick Look | Wall Street calls out NVIDIA at $1200! Target price for BABA-SWR, Tesla rating downgraded

• Huil Securities: Downgraded Tesla's rating to "Neutral" with a target price of $175.

• Loop Capital: Rated NVIDIA as "Buy" with a target price of $1200, the highest on Wall Street. Analysts mentioned the internet bubble of the 90s, saying, "We will party like it's 1995!"

• The high target price is due to investors' bets on its AI prospects and the transition of super-scale computing centers to larger-scale graphics processing unit computing. Analysts believe NVIDIA is at the "front end" of a multi-year cycle.

• Analysts expect this trend to help NVIDIA's stock price rise to the consensus target price estimated by analysts in the next two fiscal years. In 2023 alone, NVIDIA's GPU business opportunities could reach $150 billion.

• Bank of America: Maintains a "Buy" rating for NVIDIA with a target price of $800. The bank still holds a "Buy" rating and maintains its preference before NVIDIA announces its performance on the 21st of this month. Despite recent parabolic price increases, even a significant but brief pullback would not be surprising, with about 11% potential volatility before the performance announcement.

• Market expectations are steadily rising, with some optimistic estimates exceeding market forecasts by 9% in the fourth quarter and 7% in the first quarter guidance. Therefore, there is limited upside potential from performance surprises. Even if the performance does not meet optimistic expectations, it should involve the supply side rather than demand or market competition.

• The bank believes that NVIDIA's stock price fluctuations are temporary. Investors are looking forward to the GTC conference from March 18th to 21st, expecting new product line, partnership, and important AI software announcements.

• Faba: Rated Alibaba as "Buy" with a target price lowered to HK$91. The bank reduced Alibaba's 10-year average annual revenue growth rate from 6% to 4% and adjusted EBITA growth from 4% to 3% to reflect intense industry competition and slower-than-expected retail sales recovery.

• The bank prefers the company to expand its buyback program, with funds available for repurchase reaching $35.3 billion by the end of March 2027, representing 18% of the company's market value on February 7th. Although the company has committed to reducing circulating shares by at least 3% annually over the next three fiscal years, the bank expects Alibaba to repurchase shares at a faster pace and in larger quantities due to its cash and liquid asset investments accounting for 44% of its market value.

• The report mentioned that while agreeing with Alibaba's emphasis on increasing market share in domestic and international e-commerce and cloud businesses, the bank believes this will erode gross margins. In addition, the company is committed to selling non-core assets over the next few years to increase return on invested capital to double digits, which is expected to take longer than the bank anticipated due to the difficulty of selling assets in a weak market.

• Guohai Securities: Maintains a "Buy" rating for Meituan-W with a target price of HK$110. The bank is optimistic about the company's core barriers in instant delivery and high resilience in the local life business. Considering the short-term pressure on the average order value growth rate of takeout and the OPM pressure of the in-store wine and travel segment, the company's revenue for 2023-2025 is adjusted to RMB 275.7/328.7/383.6 billion, and the net profit attributable to the parent is RMB 12.7/17.7/31.8 billion. Non-GAAP net profit attributable to the parent company was 22/27.5/42.6 billion yuan, corresponding to diluted EPS of 2.0/2.8/4.9 yuan.

Morgan Stanley: Downgrades HKEX to "Underweight" with a target price lowered from HKD 240 to HKD 225

The bank expects HKEX to face certain pressure on revenue and profit in the fourth quarter of last year. Due to the continued weakness in core revenue trends and a slowdown in investment income, it is estimated that revenue and net profit will decline by 8% and 13% respectively year-on-year, with daily turnover of HKD 91 billion, a decrease of 29% year-on-year.

The bank expects trading and clearing fee income to decline by 19% and 17% respectively year-on-year, and listing fee income to drop by 21% year-on-year, mainly due to the drag from derivative instruments. The bank has revised down its forecast for daily turnover in the Hong Kong stock market for this year and next year to HKD 115 billion and HKD 127 billion respectively, with HKEX's earnings per share forecast being lowered by 6% and 5.1% respectively.

UBS: Raises Applied Materials' target price from $180 to $185, maintains a "Neutral" rating

The bank pointed out that Applied Materials' latest quarterly revenue reached the upper limit of the guidance range, and earnings per share also exceeded the guidance range, mainly due to the growth of the DRAM business.

UBS has revised Applied Materials' revenue and earnings forecasts for the second quarter of 2024 to $6.69 billion and $2.03 per share, up from the previous forecast of $6.59 billion and $1.9 per share, and revised the revenue and earnings forecasts for the fiscal year 2024 to $27.42 billion and $8.26 per share, up from the previous forecast of $26.98 billion and $7.8 per share. Revenue and earnings forecasts for the fiscal year 2025 have been revised to $29.32 billion and $9.14 per share, up from the previous forecast of $29.21 billion and $8.95 per share.