SMCI stock could be a bubble, but this bubble has legs – analyst (exclusive)

Investing.com -- The surge in the Super Micro Computer's (NASDAQ:SMCI) stock price has gathered significant momentum, thanks in no small part to the growing influence of artificial intelligence. The question now is whether that momentum can continue in the foreseeable future.

SMCI stock price

Super Micro Computer stock tumbled 20% Friday, but that only tells a fraction of the company's story over the last 12 months, with an enormous 744% gain registered, even after Friday's decline.

The SMCI share price has benefitted from an ongoing rise in AI demand. However, some analysts have questioned whether the stock is in a bubble.

Based on Friday’s close, the SMCI stock is up 176% year-to-date.

What does Super Micro Computer do?

SMCI is an information technology company that designs, develops, manufactures, and markets server, storage, networking, and computing systems. The company is known for its energy-efficient and high-density servers, and it offers a wide range of products and services for a variety of applications.

The company is heavily involved in the AI industry, playing a pivotal role in providing the hardware and software infrastructure that powers AI development and deployment. SMCI's stock price increase has been fueled by surging demand for the company's high-performance rack servers for AI applications.

SMCI stock forecast

Rosenblatt analyst Hans Mosesmann raised his price target for SMCI to $1,300 from $700 this week, maintaining a Buy rating on the stock. The analyst cited the continued momentum in AI computing that they observed during recent visits to Silicon Valley and the UK.

"Key to the story is for investors to consider that the company is benefiting not only from secular AI growth (over 50% CAGR over next several years), but material share gains," the analyst wrote in a note.

"We anticipate these gains to reach double digits in the next couple of years, up from the current mid-single digits, with a particular focus on enterprise," he added. Mosesmann notes that a critical aspect of the growth trajectory is the adoption of liquid cooling technology.

"Liquid cooling, one of the next major cloud obstacles at scale for AI is, we believe, is a major trigger for hyper-scale engagement as traditional Asian ODMs and traditional server OEMs are not geared towards rapid and varied compute rack-level SKU deployment in the chaotic AI momentum," he stated.

Meanwhile, BofA labeled SMCI a "powerhouse in a fast-growing market." The bank initiated the stock with a Buy rating and a price target of $1,040.

"We think this provider of server and storage solutions will be a beneficiary of AI-driven demand growth," said the bank.

"We believe the market for AI servers is much larger than is factored in Street models. We expect the market for AI servers to grow, on average, 50% CAGR over the next three years, vs. historical growth of the overall server market (5.5% CAGR over the past 17 years), and we expect Super Micro's revenue to grow even faster driving market share gain."

Wells Fargo took a more neutral stance on the stock in its recent note, initiating an Equal Weight rating and $960 per share price target on SMCI. The bank said that while the AI momentum will continue, SMCI's stock is already discounting solid upside.

Is SMCI a good stock to buy?

There are various factors to consider when assessing whether the stock is a buy, including the current share price surge and its future prospects.

For example, BofA believes Super Micro has a growing backlog and is expanding capacity to support strong revenue growth.

"It has established itself as an early launch partner for companies like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) for CPUs and GPU accelerators," they added. "We think its ability to work with multiple new designs and technologies will serve it well as myriad AI-related processors debut in the next several years.

Is SMCI stock in a bubble?

Whether the stock is in a bubble or not is difficult to determine despite its meteoric rise. Speaking directly to Investing.com, Rosenblatt's Mosesmann said SMCI's stock "could be a bubble, of course, but it is too early in the AI cycle."

An important amount of the SMCI outlook is "in non-traditional customers (CSP's or hyperscalers)," he added. "Why go to Supermicro if these players have other sources."

Overall, out of 17 Wall Street analysts covering the stock, nine have assigned SMCI a Buy rating, seven have assigned it a Neutral rating, and one has assigned it a Sell rating. Rosenblatt has the highest price target at $1,300 per share.

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