For the past few years, the semiconductor industries have been red hot and the top stocks were all but unstoppable. But this earnings season showed some weakness in some company’s reports, and some on Wall Street are saying the cycle for the very cyclical sector has peaked. Noting lower cryptocurrency demand among other issues, the sector has buckled some recently.
One firm that remains positive on select companies is Stifel, which makes the case that the future for some of the top stocks in the sector remains bright.
The firm noted this in the report:
We prefer investing based on secular changes in the market rather than trying to predict ‘where are we in cycle?’. Thematic secular changes we have been emphasizing are: the increasing importance of memory to system performance; distributed processing in data centers or offloading workloads from CPU; and intelligence at the network edge. In our view, the past quarter’s earnings results and share price reaction clearly indicates that investors’ concerns over a cyclical peak to semiconductor shares are ruling the Semiconductor index of SOX negativity. Following our many recent meetings with institutional investors, the overriding concern is that the semiconductor business has to be at a peak. It’s been too good for too long. We continue to believe the many secular industry changes have disrupted semiconductor cycles.
Four top stocks are rated Buy at Stifel, and all still look like solid choices for more aggressive growth accounts.
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Advanced Micro Devices
After years of frustrating performance, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) appears to have turned the corner and is a hot commodity on Wall Street. AMD is one of the largest suppliers of PC microprocessors and graphics processors worldwide to computing original equipment manufacturers. The company’s main product lines include desktop, notebook and graphics processors, and embedded/semi-custom chips.
Last year the company released its first major offering in five years, the Ryzen chipset, which many feel is uniquely positioned to compete with the big players like Intel and Nvidia in the $50 billion total addressable market for personal computers, gaming, artificial intelligence and servers.
The Stifel team noted this in the recent report:
We believe some investors were concerned on the impact of lower cryptocurrency demand on GPU sales, and according to the company, blockchain accounted for ~6% of total revenue, down from ~10% the previous quarter. More importantly, in our view, the company’s non GAAP gross margins of 37.1% was up 3.5% year-over-year and the company gave guidance for non-GAAP gross margins to expand to ~38% in in fiscal third quarter 2018. The company believes it is on track for mid-single digit server CPU market share exiting 2018 and is sampling its 7 nanometer second generation EPYC chips.
The Stifel price target for the shares is $21, and the Wall Street consensus price objective was last seen at $17.96. The stock closed Friday’s trading at $19.77 a share.
Micron Technology
This is a global leader in advanced semiconductor systems. Micron Technology Inc.’s (NASDAQ: MU) broad portfolio of high-performance memory technologies, including DRAM, NAND and NOR flash, is the basis for solid state drives, modules, multichip packages and other system solutions. Its memory chip solutions enable the world’s most innovative computing, consumer, enterprise storage, networking, mobile, embedded and automotive applications.
Micron and Intel announced last year the availability of their 3D NAND technology, the world’s highest-density flash memory. Flash is the storage technology used inside the lightest laptops, fastest data centers and nearly every cell phone, tablet and mobile device.
The company posted outstanding quarterly earnings recently and also provided forward guidance that exceeded Wall Street estimates. With memory demand drivers remaining somewhat underappreciated and with solid demand from end-markets such as data center, artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, big data, mobile and autonomous driving, Micron continues to execute well on its manufacturing roadmap.
Stifel has a stunning $108 price target, while the posted consensus target is $83.60. Shares closed most recently at $47.11 apiece.
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Microchip Technology
This company is a huge Internet of Things benefactor. Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP) is a leading provider of microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog and flash-IP solutions, providing low-risk product development, lower total system cost and faster time to market for thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide.
The company received a receipt of antitrust clearance in the United States for the acquisition of Microsemi and the deal closed in June. Most on Wall Street feel it is an outstanding addition. The Stifel analysts noted this in the report:
Microchip’s forward revenue guidance was below our and consensus estimates, primarily due to excessive channel inventory of Microsemi products. We believe management can quickly resolve these inventory issues and view the negative performance of the shares since the earnings report as a buying opportunity.
MicroChip investors are paid a 1.80% dividend. The $116 Stifel price target for the stock is about the same as the $116.35 consensus price objective. The stock closed at $82.64 a share on Friday.
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ON Semiconductor
Aggressive accounts may want to look at this smaller cap play. ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ON) is a vendor of analog power management, analog signal conditioning, standard logic integrated circuits (ICs) and discrete chips into the automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial and medical applications. The company is in the midst of a transformation from a seller of commodity discrete chips into higher value-added analog ICs, both through organic growth and acquisitions.
The analysts view ON as an underappreciated way for investors to benefit from the emergence of advanced driver assistance systems and eventually autonomous driving. While the company is inherently levered (operationally and financially) and therefore subject to investor fears of cyclical volatility, many continue to see structural upside for the shares.
The Stifel analysts noted this in the report:
ON Semiconductor noted strong secular growth drivers with high customer confidence and extended lead times, but shares have traded down since earnings as we believe investors anticipating a peaking cycle are concerned with management’s capital investment plans.
Stifel has set its price target at $30. The posted consensus target is $25.10, and the shares ended the trading session on Friday at $20.32.
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These are four top companies to buy, and some have huge upside potential to the Stifel price targets. It may make sense to scale-buy shares over a two or three month period, just in case more volatility comes into the sector.
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