JPMorgan Downgrades Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI) to Underweight, Slashes Price Target Amid Regulatory Uncertainty and Leadership Concerns

We recently compiled a list of the 14 AI News Investors Are Paying Attention To. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI) stands against the other AI  stocks investors are paying attention to.

The release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, now the most valuable private firm in the world, back in November 2022 had widespread implications for the technology industry. In the two years since the release, technology valuations, which had hit a snag due to broader inflation and slowing growth concerns, have jumped back up. Technology giants have surpassed multi-trillion dollar valuations and OpenAI itself has crossed $150 billion in value. In this environment, technology firms have been pushing for greater capital expenditures on AI infrastructure, telling investors that adding more data and computing power will consistently lead to improved AI models.

Read more about these developments by accessing 10 Best AI Data Center Stocks and 10 Buzzing AI Stocks According to Goldman Sachs.

However, news agency Reuters reports that new techniques being used by AI firms to train their AI models could reshape the AI arms race, and have implications for the types of resources that AI companies have an insatiable demand for, from energy to types of chips. For example, Ilya Sutskever, a Canadian-Israeli computer scientist who was one of the founders of OpenAI, has said that results from scaling up pre-training have plateaued. The computer scientist claims that the 2010s were the age of scaling, and now we’re back in the age of wonder and discovery once again. Everyone is looking for the next thing, and scaling the right thing matters more now than ever.

Read more about these developments by accessing 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock and Beyond the Tech Giants: 35 Non-Tech AI Opportunities.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by combing through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A team of technicians in a server room, testing and managing the newest server solutions.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI)

Market Capitalization: $14 Billion 

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI) develops and manufactures high-performance server and storage solutions based on modular and open architecture. On November 6, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee downgraded Super Micro to Underweight from Neutral with a price target of $23, down from $50. The company issued a positive update in relation to the opinion of the Special Committee, but JPMorgan expects more uncertainty around both the company’s regulatory filings and business fundamentals, the advisory told investors in a research note. The advisory says Super Micro refrained from providing further transparency around the issues leading to the disagreement with the prior auditor even as it reaffirmed the Special Committee’s opinion that the Audit Committee had acted independently and that there is no evidence of fraud or misconduct. The company also offered limited commitments on leadership changes to address investor concerns and a lack of certainty around the timing of an appointment of a new auditor, adds JPMorgan.

Overall SMCI ranks 14th on our list of the stocks investors are paying attention to. While we acknowledge the potential of SMCI as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SMCI but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.