r/stocks

Can someone explain the purpose of price targets by the experts in publications and news?

For example, expert XYZ of some highly-regarded publication sets a PT of $500 for a stock that is currently $300.

By that logic, shouldn't that publication and everyone and their mother go all-in on that stock?

Are these price targets simply a ploy to drive retail interest? Are they actually rooted in solid fundamentals and rational logic? Why do people hold so much weight on the price targets that are being published?

Edit: Appreciate everyone's input. I felt like I was being a cynic but sounds like my assumptions were warranted that it's all theater!

Last week Nvidia gave two companies access to over 200,000 GPUs without asking for full payment upfront. That's a pretty big shift for a company that's been selling chips about as fast as it can make them. The new model lets AI cloud providers access GPUs through revenue sharing and credit support structures rather than paying the full cost outright. Two Australian firms, Sharon AI (up to 40,000 GPUs) and Firmus Technologies (building a data center in Indonesia expected to house up to 170,000 GPUs) are the first partners under this setup. The stated goal is getting more Nvidia-powered capacity into the hands of smaller AI startups and cloud providers who can't finance massive GPU purchases.

On the surface this looks like a smart move. Nvidia's biggest customers are the handful of hyperscalers who can already afford whatever they want, but the long tail of smaller AI cloud providers and startups is a market that's been constrained not because they don't want more compute, but because they can't afford it. If Nvidia removes that barrier, it grows the total pool of buyers and locks more of the ecosystem into its stack, CUDA, its hardware, its software layer. It's basically Nvidia manufacturing more demand for itself by financing the thing it sells.

This same move also makes you think of the bear case. This starts to look like vendor financing, a company effectively taking on credit or revenue-share exposure to get customers to buy more of its own product. That's a pattern that's shown up in prior hardware cycles right before a demand air pocket, if you have to help finance your customers' purchases to keep growth numbers up, it can be a sign that organic, cash-funded demand isn't quite as strong. It's the kind of structural shift that's worth watching closely.

But that decision isn't new, OpenAI has already finalized deals where it took equity stakes or investment commitments from partners like Amazon and AMD instead of straightforward cash transactions. It seems like the AI infrastructure chain has been leaning on these kinds of revenue and equity sharing arrangements specifically to get around liquidity constraints. So, Nvidia's decision fits a pattern that's already showing up across the entire stack, chipmakers, labs, and cloud providers.

Whether that's a sign of a maturing market finding creative financing solutions or a sign that the whole chain is more fragile and interconnected than growth numbers make it look, that is something to think over.

There's some other context worth mentioning too. NVDA also just recruited a Microsoft executive specifically to lead its new field operations unit, which sounds a lot like the forward-deployed-engineering trend we've seen from Microsoft, Palantir, and others this year, another sign every major AI-adjacent company is converging on the same playbook.

So, does this look like Nvidia smartly expanding its addressable market by removing a capital barrier or does taking on this kind of credit exposure to drive chip sales start to look like a red flag.

Last week I posted that I was more confused by the sell-off than the earnings.
Then I spent the whole weekend reading everyone's explanations.
Profit taking. Rotation. Too expensive. AI bubble.
Fair enough.
Now the market finally opens again and the whole memory group comes out strong.
WDC and STX are flying, MU and SNDK are green too.
It's only been an hour, so I'm not going to pretend one morning proves anything.
But I have to say, this doesn't really look like a group the market suddenly decided was broken.
Last week everyone had a story.
Today I'm more interested in whether buyers are still here this afternoon.
That's it.
I'm just watching.
But so far, the market is making some of those weekend theories look a little dramatic😂

I’m looking to add some long-term exposure to AI, semiconductors, and microchips in my investment portfolio and wanted to get some opinions from people who have already done the research.

I’m mainly interested in ETFs or index funds rather than picking individual stocks. My goal is long-term growth (10+ years), and I’m happy with some volatility if the long-term outlook is strong.

At the moment I’m considering semiconductor-focused funds as well as AI-focused ETFs, but I’m not sure which offer the best balance of diversification, fees, and long-term potential.

For those of you investing in this space:
Which ETFs or index funds do you hold and why?
Do you prefer semiconductor ETFs over AI ETFs?
Are there any funds you’d avoid?

These daily discussions run from Monday to Friday including during our themed posts.

Some helpful links:

* [Finviz](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=spy) for charts, fundamentals, and aggregated news on individual stocks

* [Bloomberg market news](https://www.bloomberg.com/markets)

* StreetInsider news:

* [Market Check](https://www.streetinsider.com/Market+Check) - Possibly why the market is doing what it's doing including sudden spikes/dips

* [Reuters aggregated](https://www.streetinsider.com/Reuters) - Global news

If you have a basic question, for example "what is EPS," then google "investopedia EPS" and click the investopedia article on it; do this for everything until you have a more in depth question or just want to share what you learned.

Please discuss your portfolios in the [Rate My Portfolio sticky.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/search?q=author%3Aautomoderator+title%3A%22Rate+My+Portfolio%22&restrict\_sr=on&sort=new&t=all).

See our past [daily discussions here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/search?q=author%3Aautomoderator+%22r%2Fstocks+daily+discussion%22&restrict\_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) Also links for: [Technicals](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/search?q=author%3Aautomoderator+title%3Atechnicals&restrict\_sr=on&include\_over\_18=on&sort=new&t=all) Tuesday, [Options Trading](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/search?q=author%3Aautomoderator+title%3Aoptions&restrict\_sr=on&include\_over\_18=on&sort=new&t=all) Thursday, and [Fundamentals](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/search?q=author%3Aautomoderator+title%3Afundamentals&restrict\_sr=on&include\_over\_18=on&sort=new&t=all) Friday.

Based entirely on Reddit hype and FOMO, today I bought HOVR, ACHR and JOBY. I added this to MRLN, ONDS, PDYN, and AUR, which I bought last week.

I assume most of these will go the way of CHPT and WBX which are the last two stocks I got burned on when trying to get ahead of the tech curve. It seems like once ever couple of years I need a reminder to only buy index-tracking ETFs. That stated, I have had some success this year basing my selections off of what elected reps purchased. Everyone here is just so darn excited about autonomous airplanes and trucks and drones powered by electricity!

Micron is currently my only memory stock, but I 'm planning on buying SK Hynix stock next week. I don't live in the US, and I have access to both the Korean and US stock exchanges via my broker. Fees are negligible for both. With that in mind, which SK Hynix stock should I buy? I live in Asia so my timezone is closer to Korea's which should help me react to news quicker, but I'm not sure how important that is. Is there a clear cut answer to this question, or does it not matter at all?

Every June the same idea comes back around: hurricane season is starting, storms mean damage, damage means rebuilding, rebuilding means Home Depot and Lowe's print money. buy before the season, ride the demand. it sounds so obviously right that people repeat it every year without checking.

so I checked.

method: event study around June 1 (Atlantic season open) every year 2010–2025. CAPM market model, abnormal returns vs the S&P 500, [-10, +10] trading day window, one-sample t-test on the CARs. standard academic methodology, nothing exotic.

result: the trade loses. Home Depot -1.7%, Lowe's -3.1% vs the market on average, positive in only 4 of 16 years. statistically significant at p=0.034. worst years 2021 (-9.8%) and 2025 (-7.2%).

plotting it day-by-day made it worse for the theory: the underperformance starts ~8 days before June 1. the market isn't slow to price hurricane season, it's early.

why the obvious trade fails (my read):

the rebuilding demand is real, but it's localised and it happens after a specific storm hits a specific region. at season open, nothing's been damaged. what the whole market sees on June 1 is five months of catastrophe risk starting, and it's been seeing the exact same "seasonal demand" story every year for decades. it's priced. you're not early to anything, you're the exit liquidity for people who were.

(I also ran insurers: Allstate, Travelers for the same window. also negative, which surprises nobody. the home improvement leg is the one people actually trade on, so that's the headline.)

the general lesson that keeps showing up when I test these: sound business logic ≠ tradeable stock pattern. "more storms = more plywood sales" can be completely true and the stock still loses, because the question is never whether the story is right, it's whether you know something the price doesn't.

next up I'm testing whether the rebuild bump shows up if you measure after actual major landfalls instead of season open, my guess is that's where the folk theory really lives, but guessing is the whole problem, so.

happy to share methodology details in comments if anyone wants to poke at it.

not financial advice, past performance ≠ future results, I just like checking whether market folklore survives contact with data

Currently looking into non tech, non AI, non quantum, non space stocks. I mean I am quite heavy on tech sector and would like to explore other sectors that may have been good to hold for the long.

One of such stocks I am looking at is $COKE. And another one I am exploring is $SN. Sharkninja has been offering innovative product and expanding its product categories towards different categories, targeting different audiences. Coke is... Coke. Although this is the logistics arm of business, COKE has always have a strong moat.

Curious to hear what other stocks you hold or are exploring, that are not tech or AI related.

Key Points

• French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have stepped up personal outreach to major tech CEOs.
• France and India are trying to secure AI data centers, cloud infrastructure and chip investment.
• The push comes as the U.S. and China remain ahead in AI, with other countries struggling to not get left behind.

Nations are racing to keep pace with advancements in AI, with French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spearheading personal charm initiatives to attract technology CEOs.

This year, the two leaders have intensified their efforts to engage with executives from the world's largest tech firms, aiming to secure investments and significant AI infrastructure projects.

They distinguish themselves from other nations competing to establish the necessary data centers and ecosystems to support this technology through their emphasis on personal connections.

CEOs including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis all took part.

I'm going to keep this short. This is not a rallying cry or call for war, this is just a moment of reflection. A moment to look in the mirror and ask yourselves if you really believe that clown faced fuck Ronald Mcdipshit is really 21x hotter than the red headed sexpot herself.Think deep and hard about that. Ponder over it. Let it consume you. Because that's what the math is mathing.

You see if you take their current market caps and divide it by the totals stores what you find is that each McDungus location is worth approx 4.2. MILLION tendies

Meanwhile the Dumpster Diva herself is worth approx 200,000 per homefront

Now I don't know about you or your dirty dick tastebuds but speaking for myself I can with 100% certainty proclaim that I much rather enrich my arteries til heart failure with the dripping meat juice of a Baconator before I ever let a Big Mac take me to the grave. Frankly it's not even close.

“bUt ThE fRiEs" In response to this I hear you, I really do but these are BURGER establishments. The fries are the side bitch. We're talking about a wife here. Are you going to mess up a good thing over a side bitch? (Yea you probably are) but thats beside the point. The point is this and this alone. McDickweeds is NOT 21x better from a food alone standpoint by any means.

Im not saying to sell your grandmas veneers to buy shares, I'm just saying that I hope one day I can pull up to Wendy's in my red lambo with my son in the front seat and order some some fries to dip in our frosties and I can point over the the dumpster in the back and say "See that Wendell, that is where it all started"

Because what are we without traditions.

I've only been on Reddit for a couple of weeks, and one thing I've noticed is how differently people explain the exact same market move.
On English forums, I mostly see profit taking, rotation, valuations, rates...
Then I open Chinese investor forums and the story is usually much darker😂
A lot of people there basically think overseas investors always show up late and end up holding the bag.
I don't really buy the full conspiracy version of it.
But reading both sides does make me wonder sometimes...
By the time everyone is talking about the same investment story, are most of us already late?
Or does it only feel that way after a red week?
Anyway, probably too much thinking for a day the market is closed😂

The hype is real, and has been for a while. I bought and sold at the same price recently, as I am afraid it’s too hype driven. However, if they execute, the future revenue and market potential is absolutely massive. On the other hand, the multiple compression could be absolutely terrifying if they mess it up.

So I see massive potential, and I lean very bullish - yet, there’s something in the back of my head holding me back. I feel like building a, to me, failure big position because of the potential - but is it too risky?

I’m probably gonna get a lot of hate for this, but I’ve seen so many subreddits of stocks where people only tend to give bullish advice. Some or even most are usually full of delusional people, who can’t give an objective assessment on the company (especially micro and small cap). All I see is shit like “TOO THE MOON”, “WE’RE GONNA HIT 200 EOY”. I’ve seen countless times where a company is clearly overvalued and people just tell newbies to “hold and it will go up for sure”. They outright downvote you like crazy if you bring up ANY valid concerns.

Having said this, please for the love of God do your own due diligence.

I am NOT predicting imminent collapse, but history is worth knowing. In 1921 Radio Corp of America (RCA) was $2.50 per share. By 1929, it was $568. People got very rich. Radio was the greatest technology ever, and changing the world.

In ‘29 when the crash happened it dropped to $15. By 1932, it was $2.63. It seems impossible to ignore the possible parallels with current technology boom and bubble. AI and SpaceX may change the world, but… Thoughts?

The world is no longer the way it once was, and it will never be again as it once was. Artificial Intelligence in the hands of the masses has changed the landscape of the civilized world to such an extent that we have yet to truly grapple with it. So, when I hear people speak about an AI Bubble, I find myself disagreeing with the underlying concept of there being a bubble in the first place.

There’s no denying that Micron, Sandisk, Nvidia, Nebius, Google, Anthropic, etc. ALL had shocking parabolic rises to insane heights in recent years; much of which was built on the “AI Hype.” And, the fear is that this AI Hype is not enough to continuously drive up these companies and, sooner or later, it will all come tumbling down.

Though a decline in stock price is possible, and though Micron or Sandisk or Nebius etc. might all be struggling to solidify themselves as relevant in the next 20 years, the AI thesis holds as so fundamentally true that there is no bubble, it’s all just adjustment. Example: Memory is vital right now. It will continue to rise. However, perhaps some THING will solve the memory crisis and
then we bid adieu to Micron and Sandisk. That doesn’t mean there’s a bubble, that means there’s evolution within the universe of AI that is evolving at such a gross scale.

My point is simple. AI Bubble doesn’t exist in the sense that AI is all hype and will collapse. AI is the next thing in human history. AI will undoubtedly write itself into history as either what made humanity great or caused it to die quicker. But its relevance is not lost and will not be lost until all of humanity is lost. I see AI as truly the next frontier of humanity and relegating normal market trends to something so earth shattering is misguided.

Would appreciate constructive thoughts on ASTS. Is it a hold, sell, or buy in your opinion?

Analyst consensus is hold.

I’ve read that there are some setbacks to do with legislation, but there are upcoming opportunities for the company that may result in big gains including government contracts. Its delayed launches of direct device connection has caused issues but I’ve not read about anything that might seem unrecoverable.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

Microsoft's had an encouraging turn this week, after a rough June the stock bounced back on some genuinely new substantive news rather than just a market rebound. Operating margins are sitting at a strong 46.8%, and Wall Street's consensus rating on the stock is still "Strong Buy," with a mean price target implying nearly 40% upside from here, so the long-term sentiment clearly hasn't broken despite the recent rough ride.

MSFT announced a $2.5 billion investment into a new unit called Microsoft Frontier Company, roughly 6,000 engineers who get embedded directly inside client organizations (Unilever, LSEG, Novo Nordisk are named examples) to build and run custom AI systems for them. It's explicitly framed as solving Microsoft's actual bottleneck this year, which isn't a lack of AI capability, it's enterprise hesitation. Big companies have been reluctant to hand proprietary data over to cloud AI tools out of fear it somehow gets used to improve a competitor's model. And this new unit solves that concern by bringing AI systems to the enterprises without them handing over their data over to cloud AI tools.

That's a meaningfully different move than what Meta did with its cloud pivot. Meta allowed their extra computing power to be capitalized whereas MSFT is getting enterprises to trust and adopt AI, which is a demand-side fix rather than a supply-side one. Which strategy justifies the huge capex and has a better view of the pay out still has to be seen over the next few years.

There is the bear case obviously, a 6,000-person forward-deployed engineering unit is a real cost center, not free, and if enterprise adoption stays slow anyway, this is just another $2.5 billion added to a spending that's already investors are nervous about. Capex is genuinely scaling faster than revenue proofs are showing up and a single well received strategic decision doesn't automatically resolve the recent trend of investors questioning whether AI spend converts into margin.

If enterprise trust really has been the main thing holding AI adoption back does a dedicated $2.5B unit like this actually move that needle or is trust the kind of thing that gets earned slowly over time and these announcements make good headline.

I love the gambling aspect of investing, but I also appreciate the power of compounding over time in the market.

A few things I believe;

The market goes up in the long run.

Time in the market bears timing the market.

The best returns come after the crash, stay invested.

Options are the same as gambling.

Now on to my strategy. I made my seed money on GME when I had no idea what I was doing. I chased after that and lost on every idea I tried to chase looking for the same returns. I LEARNED so much from these losses, I have become a student and keep myself informed on current events as well as follow any single stocks I invest in, listen to earnings calls, read analyst reports etc.

While I understand options are gambling, I love trading options. I have 35k in SGOV that I use as collateral for options while earning interest on the 35k. I also have a core of 8 tickers I plan to hold until I no longer believe in the company so any dip is a buying opportunity for me, MSFT is my current target for accumulation at these prices.

I mostly sell puts, put credit spreads, iron condors or PMCCs. Any time I realize profit, I funnel it into one of my core tickers. It's small amounts over time. If I lose on an option I can cover from cash or, if needed but hopefully not, cash out SGOV to cover the loss. With 35k in SGOV, I never have more than 20k in collateral so even though I'm using margin I'm never in fear of owing money.

This let's me keep gambling but also compound my portfolio over the long term. The catch is that if I took my 35k and invested into my cores from the start I'd be much higher than I am now but I'd have nothing to gamble with and I'm worried I'd get reckless and lose money.

What do you think? Enable my gambling while still compounding the stocks i think matter in the long run.