Investing.com -- Here is your Pro Recap of the top takeaways from Wall Street analysts for the past week.
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Super Micro Computer
What happened? On Monday, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) downgraded Super Micro Computer Inc (NASDAQ:SMCI) to Sell with a $32 price target.
*TLDR: SMCI faces valuation, margin, and competition risks. Market leadership threatened by rising pressures.
What’s the full story? SMCI’s stock, up 38% year-to-date, trades at 16x F2025E P/E, with the Goldman analysts viewing risk-reward as unfavorable amid valuation, competition, and margin concerns.
Intensifying competition in AI servers, driven by reduced product differentiation and rivals’ R&D investments, threatens SMCI’s early market leadership. Further, gross margins are expected to decline in F2025-27 due to competition, Blackwell product transitions, and pressure from concentrated customer and supplier relationships.
The analysts highlight SMCI’s valuation premium, currently at 12x NTM+1 P/E compared to server OEM peers like Dell (NYSE:DELL) at 9x, as unsustainable. This premium is likely to converge over time due to limited differentiation in AI server products and risks tied to its high customer and supplier concentration.
Goldman Sachs warns of mounting headwinds that could erode SMCI’s market position and financial performance.
Carvana
What happened? On Tuesday, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) upgraded Carvana Co (NYSE:CVNA) to Overweight with a $280 price target.
*TLDR: Carvana sees growth, profitability, and strengthened leverage. Vertical integration fuels its used-car dominance.
What’s the full story? Morgan Stanley upgraded Carvana to Equal-weight in November, recognizing its improved fundamentals but highlighting risks like growth sustainability, high leverage, and challenges in the U.S. auto credit market. Despite exposure to weaker auto credit segments, Carvana has outpaced peers with profitable growth, addressing leverage concerns and delivering four consecutive quarters of double-digit retail unit growth and nearly double the industry’s average EBITDA margins. The analysts note that Carvana’s EBITDA margin surprises, now in line with franchise dealers and CarMax (NYSE:KMX) at 2.8x Net Debt/Adj EBITDA, underscore a more constructive outlook. Its ability to self-finance through free cash flow has also alleviated worries about its $5.6 billion corporate debt.
Carvana’s 1% share of the U.S. used-car market belies its potential. With fulfillment infrastructure double its current needs, the company has achieved efficiencies, doubling gross margins and halving SG&A as a percentage of gross profit since 2021. Its 4Q results suggest profitable growth is sustainable, not fleeting. The integration of auction sites and reconditioning facilities via its 2022 ADESA acquisition further positions Carvana to unlock synergies and scale. A recent visit to its Florida Inspection and Reconditioning Center reinforced its competitive edge in vertical integration, fueling comparisons to the “Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) of auto retail.”
For Morgan Stanley, Carvana has turned a corner, combining growth, profitability, and a strengthened balance sheet.
Summit Therapeutics
What happened? On Wednesday, Citi upgraded Summit Therapeutics PLC (NASDAQ:SMMT) to Buy with a $35 price target.
*TLDR: Citi upgrades SMMT, sees ~70% OS success. Near-term risks dim long-term optimism.
What’s the full story? Citi upgrades SMMT to Buy with a $35 target price, reversing its earlier downgrade to Neutral in 3Q24. The bank had initially stepped back after a significant stock re-rating post-WCLC, but its latest deep dive analysis—leveraging its Clinical Trial Simulator for HARMONi-2—now suggests a ~70% chance of a favorable overall survival (OS) readout by YE25. If successful, SMMT’s ivonescimab could emerge as a paradigm-shifting therapy in NSCLC, potentially challenging Keytruda’s dominance in immunotherapy. Citi’s conviction stems from modeling the OS delta, which is expected to flow from the PFS delta over Keytruda (5.3 months), with additional OS gains driven by ivonescimab’s mechanism of action.
The bank acknowledges potential hurdles. While HARMONi-2 represents a larger market opportunity (1L NSCLC), investors will first encounter HARMONi’s mid-2025 data, a smaller Phase 3 trial in 2L EGFRm NSCLC. Citi expects HARMONi to miss significance on OS, a co-primary endpoint. Still, this is seen as a speed bump rather than a derailment, with the broader bull case anchored on HARMONi-2’s anticipated success.
The bank’s analysis underscores a measured optimism, balancing near-term risks with long-term potential.
Advanced Micro Devices
What happened? On Thursday, Jefferies downgraded Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) to Hold with a $120 price target.
*TLDR: Jefferies downgrades AMD over AI lag, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) competition. Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) outperforms AMD in real-world benchmarks.
What’s the full story? Jefferies downgrade of AMD is attributed to limited AI traction, rising competition from Intel, and findings from a proprietary benchmarking study. The firm highlights that AMD’s MI300x lags significantly behind Nvidia’s H200 in real-world throughput across open-source models, despite superior advertised specs. Jefferies attributes this gap to Nvidia’s mature software stack, which optimizes GPU efficiency — a critical edge as system performance gains importance. The firm warns that Street estimates remain overly optimistic, with near-term downside risks outweighing potential upside.
Jefferies’ updated AI Accelerator model incorporates reported performance metrics across GPUs and ASICs, revealing AMD’s challenges in closing the competitive gap with Nvidia. The benchmarking results underscore Nvidia’s dominance, particularly as AI workloads scale across larger systems. Concurrently, Intel’s growing competition further pressures AMD’s positioning.
Jefferies concludes that while AMD’s stock has already retreated, the combination of these factors justifies a cautious Hold stance.
Beam Therapeutics
What happened? On Friday, BofA upgraded Beam Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:BEAM) to Buy with a $42 price target.
*TLDR: BofA upgrades Beam on BEAM-302 data. AATD market offers $5B potential.
What’s the full story? BofA upgrade cites promising early data for BEAM's gene-editing asset BEAM-302, which targets alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD). The analysts view the results as a potential value-unlocking event, highlighting functional AAT protein production—a key marker of efficacy. They note Beam’s platform appears increasingly derisked, supported by an attractive valuation and limited near-term dilution risk following a recent share offering.
The analysts estimate ~$1.5 billion in risk-adjusted peak sales across Beam’s pipeline, including treatments for sickle cell disease, AATD, and GSD1a. While clinical binaries remain a near-term risk, BofA sees the AATD market as a significant opportunity, modeling over $5 billion in unadjusted peak sales. Data updates in the second half of 2025 could drive stock movement if higher doses demonstrate improved response durability and tolerability.
BofA expects 2026 to be a pivotal year for further clinical milestones.
