Buy Nvidia due to ‘strong underlying trends’ in digital currency, gaming: Analyst
- Mizuho Securities reiterates its buy rating for Nvidia shares and raises its price target, citing rising digital currency prices.
- "We believe NVDA continues to see strong underlying trends in cryptocurrency and gaming ahead of company expectations, even as GPU pricing remains stable post launch," the firm's analyst writes.
Nvidia shares will rally because of the growth of the technology industries that use its chips, according to one Wall Street firm.
Mizuho Securities reiterated its buy rating for the chipmaker's shares and raised its price target, citing solid pricing for its graphics processing units, which are used in the digital currency and graphics card markets.
"We believe NVDA continues to see strong underlying trends in cryptocurrency and gaming ahead of company expectations, even as GPU pricing remains stable post launch," analyst Vijay Rakesh wrote in a note to clients Sunday.
Rakesh raised his price target for Nvidia shares to $220 from $180. The new target is 13 percent higher than Friday's closing price.
"We believe NVDA guided the OctQ with expectations of a cool down in the crypto-currency market, but continued GPU pricing strength through the quarter could position it for an upside surprise," he wrote.
Bitcoin hit another record high on Friday to more than $5,800, up over 480 percent year to date. Cryptocurrency miners use graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia to "mine" new coins, which can then be sold or held for future appreciation.
Nvidia's latest chips provide 40 times to 100 times the performance of traditional central processing units for artificial intelligence applications, the analyst noted.
Nvidia shares have rallied nearly 200 percent during the previous 12 months through midday Monday, compared with the market's 20 percent gain. That performance ranks first in the entire S&P 500, according to FactSet.
The shares are up 1.4 percent midday Monday after the report.