20 AI News and Analyst Ratings You Should Not Miss

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14. Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77

Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) provides equipment, services, and software for the semiconductor industry. The company is most famous for being a wafer fab equipment (WFE) supplier, a key piece of tech that enables the seamless manufacture of chips used in most modern devices. The AI boom has created explosive demand for these chips. In the WFE category, the firm has a diverse portfolio compared to peers like ASML and KLA Corp. The former specializes in lithography systems while the latter focuses on inspection and metrology equipment. Applied Materials, however, offers a range of WFE services, including Epitaxy, etching, deposition, ion implant, inspection and metrology, and hybrid bonding.

Investment advisory Mizuho has an Outperform rating on Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) stock and recently lowered the price target to $225 from $245. The advisory forecast 2024 and 2025 wafer fab equipment spending flat and up 2% year-over-year respectively, versus prior estimates of up 3%-4%, and highlighted some challenges for the semi firm with Intel CapEx cuts into 2025 and China potential high bandwidth memory restrictions, despite strong demand from artificial intelligence into 2025.

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