NVIDIA Shares Hit All-Time High on Analyst Actions, New Chips

NVIDIA jumped 7.8% to $42.98, a new all-time high, on two target share price hikes and optimism over its new "Tesla" chip family geared for high-performance computing. A Deutsche Bank analyst raised his target share price to $54 (from $48), saying he expects stronger growth with multiple product cycles in 2007 and 2008. Lehman Brothers upgraded NVIDIA to "Overweight" from "Equal-weight," with a target of $47/share. At its annual "Financial Analyst Day" Wednesday, NVIDIA unveiled the Tesla GPU (graphics processing unit), marking its entry into the high-performance computing market (used by geosciences, molecular biology and medical diagnostics), one it values at $6 billion by 2010. An American Technology analyst said NVIDIA will likely challenge IBM and Intel, but cautioned the market might not be ready for a GPU-based supercomputer yet. The analyst also questioned NVIDIA's ability to roll out a solution "in any meaningful volume" in 2007.

Sources: Press release, Bloomberg, eWEEK.com, MarketWatch, newratings.com
Commentary: Six Reasons For Strength In The PC Supply Chain • Jim Cramer's Take on NVIDIA • NVIDIA Q1 Earnings Beat Street
Stocks/ETFs to watch: NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA). Competitors: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Broadcom Corp. (BRCM), Creative Technology Ltd. (CREAF), Intel Corp. (INTC), IBM Corp. (IBM). ETFs: SPDR S&P Semiconductor (XSD), PowerShares Dynamic Semiconductors (PSI), iShares Goldman Sachs Semiconductor (IGW)
Conference call transcripts: NVIDIA F1Q08
Related: Webcast of NVIDIA's 2007 Annual Shareholder Meeting and Financial Analyst Day 2007, Tesla GPU

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