Stifel Raises Elastic N.V. (ESTC) Price Target to $140 on Strong Earnings and AI Growth Potential

We recently compiled a list of the 10 AI Stocks on Wall Street’s Radar Right Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) stands against the other AI stocks.

The research preview of the latest GPT-4.5 model from ChatGPT creator OpenAI has been released. The preview, released for Pro users and developers worldwide, will also be expanded for access in the coming weeks. According to the company, it is their largest and best model for ChatGPT yet. It comes with an enhanced ability to recognize patterns, generate creative insights without reasoning, and also show greater emotional intelligence.

READ ALSO: 10 Buzzing AI Stocks Dominating Headlines and 10 AI Stocks Gaining Momentum Right Now

The company stated that early testing has shown that GPT-4.5 seems more natural. The model’s broader knowledge base, enhanced ability to follow user intent, and greater “EQ” allow it to be better at writing, programming, and solving practical problems. The company also expects it to hallucinate less than other models.

OpenAI is currently sharing the model as a research preview to better understand its strengths and limitations. CEO Sam Altman has deemed it “a giant, expensive model,” revealing how the company ran out of GPU capacity to roll out to user tiers at the same time.

“We will add tens of thousands of GPUs next week … this isn’t how we want to operate, but it’s hard to perfectly predict growth surges that lead to GPU shortages”.

-CEO Sam Altman

Tencent has also launched an AI model to compete in the AI race. According to Tencent, the model has the ability to answer queries faster than the famous DeepSeek’s R1. Known as The Hunyuan Turbo S, the model can reply to queries within a second. This makes it unique from models such as the DeepSeek R1, Hunyuan T1, and other slow thinking models that need to ‘think for a while before answering”.

Tests have further shown how Turbo S’ capabilities have matched DeepSeek-V3 in fields like knowledge, math, and reasoning. The company has also highlighted the usage costs of the new model are many times cheaper than its previous iterations, signifying how DeepSeek’s open-source and low-pricing strategy has led other leading companies to follow suit.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024.

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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points  (see more details here).

Is Elastic N.V. (ESTC) the High Growth Cybersecurity Stock To Buy?

A group of software engineers working in an open, futuristic office.

Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 47

Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) is a search AI company offering cloud-based solutions. On February 28, Stifel analyst Brad Reback raised the firm’s price target on the stock to $140 from $132 and kept a “Buy” rating on the shares. The rating, issued after the company’s earnings print, highlighted how Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC)’s revenue beat expectations by more than 3% based on its broad-based strength across the portfolio. The firm stated that certain factors can position Elastic for relative outperformance, including improvement in go-to-market execution, strong consumption trends, the large and growing GenAI opportunity, and ongoing operational efficiency position.

Overall ESTC ranks 8th on our list of AI stocks that are on Wall Street’s radar right now. While we acknowledge the potential of ESTC 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 time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ESTC but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stock To Buy Now and Complete List of All AI Companies Under $2 Billion Market Cap.

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