Financial analysts made several consequential moves in stocks tied to AI infrastructure, space-enabled compute and creative-software ecosystems this week. Their actions reflect changing views on product cycles, long-term commercial contracts and structural opportunities that could reshape revenue pools across chips, data-center connectivity, satellite connectivity and launch economics.
Micron: Goldman projects another very strong quarter
Goldman Sachs materially increased its price target on Micron to $900 from $400, while keeping a Neutral rating on the memory chipmaker. The firm also lifted its 2026 and 2027 revenue and adjusted EPS forecasts by an average of 28% and 36%, respectively, ahead of Micron’s fiscal third-quarter report later this month.
Analysts led by James Schneider now expect Micron to outperform consensus revenue in the quarter by roughly 9%, forecasting revenue of $37.6 billion, a gross margin of 83.4% and adjusted EPS of $22.07. Those figures compare with Street consensus of $34.4 billion revenue, an 81.9% gross margin and $19.74 EPS.
Looking to the August quarter, Goldman projects $48.8 billion in revenue versus consensus of $40.4 billion. For full-year 2026, Goldman's revenue and EPS estimates sit 30% and 36% above the Street, respectively.
The firm pins its upside thesis on ongoing market tightness. Goldman’s analysts wrote that they expect constrained supply and robust demand conditions to persist through calendar year 2027, supporting higher pricing and margins for the memory industry. A focal point for investors, they noted, will be Micron’s Strategic Customer Agreements - long-term contracts that lock in supply commitments and may include pricing guarantees. Goldman also pointed to Micron’s roughly 20% share in high-bandwidth memory as a likely source of continued strength, with conventional DRAM pricing adding potential upside.
Wolfe Research opens coverage on SpaceX with an Outperform
Wolfe Research initiated coverage of Space Exploration Technologies, assigning an Outperform rating and a $175 price target. The call came after SpaceX priced an unprecedented U.S. IPO at $135 a share, raising $75 billion and valuing the company at $1.77 trillion ahead of its Nasdaq debut.
Analysts Myles Walton and Peter Supino set out a bullish scenario focused on the company’s push to drive launch costs toward near-zero. Wolfe projects roughly 70% top-line growth and a near-doubling of EBITDA margins through 2030 if SpaceX can establish a durable cost advantage.
The note frames Starship - the next-generation fully reusable rocket still in testing - as central to that outcome. Wolfe estimates that successful reusability could reduce incremental launch costs from about $14 million per Falcon 9 flight to under $5 million per Starship launch, with minimum costs getting close to $1 million for fuel. Their modeling suggests that without Starship, SpaceX’s 2030 and 2035 financial targets would be reduced by 35% and 50%, respectively.
Wolfe expects Starlink to be the most reliable near-term earnings engine, forecasting Connectivity EBITDA exceeding $90 billion by 2030 as next-generation satellites expand broadband and mobile subscribers. The research team also highlighted AI-related growth tied to SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI and a pending deal for coding platform Cursor, identifying the AI segment as the fastest-growing piece of the business. They note compute contracts with Anthropic and Google that they say are worth $26.4 billion annually.
Wolfe cautioned on meaningful execution risks: Starship has not yet achieved orbital flight, and the analysts warned investors to remain cautious about ambitious timelines. They do not expect SpaceX to out-innovate leading model developers such as Anthropic or OpenAI on model design, but they expect SpaceX could build a cost advantage in compute through vertical integration and space access - a benefit that would be negated if the market is enveloped in an AI bubble.
Bank of America double-upgrades Intel on server CPUs and foundry prospects
Bank of America upgraded Intel from Underperform to Buy and raised its price target to $135 from $96, signaling a substantial reassessment of the company’s longer-term earnings power. BofA now models Intel delivering earnings power of more than $6 per share by 2030, up from a prior estimate in the $3-4 range. The analysts applied a 25x multiple to its 2030 EPS power estimate of $6.24, discounted back two years.
Lead analyst Vivek Arya said the earlier sum-of-parts approach had under-represented some of Intel’s CPU and foundry opportunities that lie further out. On server CPUs, BofA expects Intel sales to exceed $40 billion by 2030, representing about 25% of a $170 billion total addressable market in the bank’s view. The analysts frame the server CPU opportunity in the context of agentic AI, arguing that as AI workloads evolve, the CPU’s role broadens - moving from classic server tasks to orchestrating autonomous AI agents, an addressable category they value at roughly $70 billion by 2030.
For Intel’s external foundry push, BofA identified potential customer opportunities including wafers for Apple’s M-series, MediaTek TPU wafers and ARM-based server CPUs. A recent intellectual-property collaboration with Cadence on Intel’s 14A node was cited as helping to build a more sustainable external foundry ecosystem.
The analysts also pointed to Intel’s low institutional ownership as a possible upside catalyst. Despite a market capitalization around $540 billion - described as the fifth-largest among U.S. semiconductor and AI infrastructure names in their set - Intel is held by just 16% of S&P 500 funds, making it the second least-owned stock in that group after SanDisk.
BofA also upgrades STMicroelectronics, posts Street-high price target
In a separate action, Bank of America upgraded STMicroelectronics to Buy from Neutral and set a Street-high price target of €86 (about $100). BofA’s analysts, led by Didier Scemama, argued that the market is materially underestimating STM’s earnings potential over the next two to three years.
BofA cited four drivers supporting the upgrade: STM’s growing role in optical interconnects for data centers, exposure to low-earth orbit satellites, early signs of recovery in automotive and industrial demand, and “substantial operating leverage owing to its considerable spare capacity.” The team modeled EPS of $1.57 for 2026, $3.53 for 2027 and $4.63 for 2028, each figure running 30% to 43% above consensus across those years.
Optical interconnects are central to BofA’s bull case. The bank forecasts revenue from optical interconnects rising from $670 million this year to $2.3 billion by 2028, citing STM’s 300mm silicon photonics manufacturing and advanced packaging as structural advantages. BofA sees STM’s share of silicon photonics expanding from roughly 5% today to more than 30% over the next three years, with AWS serving as an anchor customer.
On low-earth orbit satellites, where STM is reported to hold about a 90% market share, BofA expects cumulative revenues of $3.6 billion between 2026 and 2028, which it notes is ahead of company guidance of $3 billion or more. The analysts said that STM is trading at a 32% discount to diversified peers on 2028E EV/EBITDA and argued that such a deep gap is unwarranted.
Adobe: multiple downgrades after a quarter that shifted guidance and leadership visibility
Adobe came under renewed pressure following quarterly results that prompted several sell-side downgrades. Analysts cited the company’s strategic pivot toward a freemium growth model and continued leadership uncertainty as the main concerns.
Wolfe Research cut its rating to Peer Perform from Outperform, with analyst Alex Zukin describing the quarter as “thesis-changing.” Net new annual recurring revenue (NNARR) excluding Semrush came in at $560 million, down 3% year-over-year, while organic annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth guidance was reduced by about $480 million.
Wolfe set a fair value range of $165-$210 and noted that although AI-related ARR tripled year-over-year, total NNARR still declined year-over-year, which complicates underwriting a durable ARR growth profile.
Evercore ISI moved to In Line from Outperform and cut its price target to $225. Analyst Kirk Materne said Adobe reset its full-year organic ARR outlook by approximately $500 million and that about $480 million of the company’s headline 10.2% total ARR growth target incorporates Semrush ARR. Materne added that he was “wrong to assume that a washed-out valuation could bridge investors to a narrative reset,” and he does not expect sentiment to improve until new CEO and CFO appointments are in place and able to demonstrate execution.
Stifel also downgraded Adobe to Hold from Buy, with analyst J. Parker Lane pointing to a meaningful reduction in full-year organic ARR outlook and the company’s decision to trade some near-term growth for monthly active user expansion. The downgrade cycle was amplified by the announced departure of CFO Dan Durn and the planned exit of CEO Shantanu Narayen later this year, further clouding near-term leadership visibility.
Takeaways
This week’s analyst activity highlights divergent views on who will capture value as AI adoption accelerates. Memory pricing and supply dynamics underpin bullish forecasts for Micron. SpaceX’s enormous IPO valuation and Wolfe’s thesis hinge on dramatic cost reductions enabled by Starship reusability and a fast-growing Starlink connectivity business. Bank of America’s reassessment of Intel leans on expanded server CPU relevance in an agentic AI world and the potential for an external foundry business anchored by high-profile wafer deals. BofA’s upgrade of STMicroelectronics emphasizes silicon photonics and LEO-satellite exposure as overlooked drivers of near-term earnings power. By contrast, Adobe’s downgrades reflect concerns about ARR sustainability and executive turnover.
Investors tracking AI-related infrastructure and services will likely focus on execution milestones in the months ahead - notably product and supply commitments, Starship flight outcomes, and updates to ARR and organic growth guidance from cloud and software providers.