Nvidia Rises As Gaming Strength Seen Offsetting Crypto Weakness

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) are higher after a Morgan Stanley analyst upgraded the stock to Overweight, saying he expects gaming strength will offset cryptocurrency weakness in the near-term.

UPGRADE: On Monday night, Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore upgraded Nvidia to Overweight from Equal Weight, stating that he sees gaming strength offsetting cryptocurrency weakness in the near-term while progress in data center inference expands the company’s long-term opportunity. The analyst also said he believes Nvidia is at a solid entry point as potential headwinds from cryptocurrency shortages coming to an end are clearly in sight due to the potential for sharp declines in ethereum mining. In addition, Moore said while he remains positive on other opportunities in the memory supply chain and artificial intelligence inference, Nvidia’s footprint continues to expand and it’s becoming increasingly clear Nvidia will be the most direct beneficiary of trends in machine learning. “As Nvidia’s footprint continues to expand, it’s increasingly clear that all roads lead back to Nvidia as the most direct beneficiary of trends in machine learning,” Moore said. He maintained a $258 price target on Nvidia shares.

WHAT’S NOTABLE: China-based Bitmain has delayed shipments for its Ethereum ASIC miner, the Antiminer E3, to mid- or late-July from April due to the circuit’s weaker-than-expected performance, but still expects shipments to reach the original target of 1.8M-2M units in 2018, DigiTimes reported Tuesday. Bitmain will start accepting pre-orders for the ASIC Miner, manufactured on TSMC’s (TSM) 28nm process, in April and begin a small volume of shipments in July with mass shipments planned for the fourth quarter after the release of an updated version of the miner. The miner has been pointed to as a potential risk to demand for graphics cards, possibly impacting Nvidia and AMD (AMD). Analysts expect Bitmain will dominate the ethereum mining market, which is estimated to account for roughly 20% of AMD’s sales and 10% of Nvidia’s revenue.