Nvidia shares completely make up Friday's plunge after analyst says buy the 'pullback'
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) shares surged 6 percent midday Monday, making up Friday's giant drop and then some, after Canaccord Genuity told its clients to buy the "pullback."
The firm reiterated its buy rating on the chipmaker's shares, predicting Nvidia's data center sales will improve the next quarter.
The company's shares fell 5.3 percent on Friday, a day after it reported better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter earnings and guidance Thursday after the close. Some investors were disappointed over its data center segment sales, which came in at $416 million versus the $423 million Wall Street consensus FactSet estimate for the quarter.
"We believe Friday's pullback will prove the entry point many investors have been looking for," analyst Matthew Ramsay wrote in a note to clients Sunday. "Nvidia is continuing to execute strongly into several secular growth markets … we believe new trends including deep learning, virtual/augmented reality, and autonomous driving will catalyze new market growth longer term."
The analyst raised his price target for Nvidia to $190 from $180, representing 22 percent upside from Friday's close.
Data center segment growth is "poised to rebound," he wrote. "We believe several large datacenter customers likely delayed purchases while waiting for Volta-based platforms to fully ramp late in the quarter … [We] anticipate a strong sales ramp for Volta based datacenter cards."
Nvidia launched new data center graphics cards named Volta in May.
As a result, the analyst raised his Nvidia fiscal 2018 earnings per share estimate to $4.09 from $3.61.
Nvidia's stock is up more than 160 percent in the past 12 months through midday Monday compared with the S&P 500's 13 percent return. That performance ranks No. 1 in the entire S&P 500, according to FactSet.
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