Stocks are running in premarket trading on Monday. Here’s a look at major indexes as of 8:50 a.m. ET:
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Nasdaq Futures: Up 205.25 (+.95%)
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S&P 500 Futures: Up 45.25 (+.76%)
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Dow Jones Futures: Up 184 (+.43%)
The big story in premarket trading is that NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) and chip stocks are up big. NVIDIA jumped 4.45% on Friday, and is currently up 2.6% in premarket trading to $148.25 per share.
NVIDIA ended 2024 trading at $134.29, which means that the stock is already up more than 10% as we begin the third trading day of the new year. Let’s check in on today’s major stories.
NVIDIA and AI Chip Stocks are Soaring
On Friday chip stocks soared as the media obsessed over a new blog post from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) which detailed $80 billion on spend around data centers this year. The financial community debated how meaningful the $80 billion number was, but most felt it pointed to more upside in AI spending this year relative to expectations.
Another major contributor to AI enthusiasm is the release of OpenAI’s o3 Model. In our ‘AI Investor Podcast’ we broke down the implications of this new model (you can listen to the most recent episode here), but the bottom line is the AI community believes 03 is a genuine breakthrough that could start a new wave of AI spending. As crazy as 2023 and 2024 were in the AI space, you may want to buckle up. 2025 may top them!
Other AI stocks are generally seeing strong gains premarket. Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) is up .85%, AMD (Nasdaq: AMD) is up 2.97%, Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) is up 4.18.%. We’ll continue watching their progress throughout the day.
Upgrades and Downgrades
Here are a few notable analyst calls that could be moving stocks today.
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Hims & Hers Upgrade: Needham raised Hims & Hers (NYSE: HIMS) to a $31 price target. In addition, the researcher added it to their Conviction List and named it their top pick in digital health. Hims & Hers stock is up 2.44% premarket.
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Citi Upgrade: Barclays moved Citigroup (NYSE: C) to overweight and took the stock’s price target up to $95 from a prior price target of $70.
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Semiconductor Equipment Stocks Get a Stamp of Approval: Another call that deserves some attention is Citi saying the time to buy semiconductor stocks is now after a major correction in the second half of 2024. Citi says the time to go ‘all in’ is now, with a trough in the industry across the first half of the year.