(Bloomberg) — Broadcom Inc.’s (AVGO) massive rally after last week’s earnings report is reminiscent of when Nvidia Corp. shares first started to take off back in 2023. The chipmaker now needs to prove it can follow through to become another giant of the artificial intelligence era.
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Broadcom shares have soared 38% in the two trading days since it reported results, pushing the company’s market capitalization to nearly $1.2 trillion. At the heart of the rally is Broadcom’s prediction that the addressable market for AI components it designs for data center operators will be as big as $90 billion by fiscal 2027. But there’s a lot to be done to turn that opportunity into reality.
“This is kind of like the Nvidia (NVDA) moment of maybe a year-and-a-half ago where they blew the number out and everybody had to catch up and chase it,” said Ken Mahoney, chief executive officer at Mahoney Asset Management, which owns the stock. Broadcom is showing investors that the demands from AI computing are so big that there’s plenty of room for other winners aside from Nvidia, Mahoney said.
Broadcom was having a strong year even before last week’s results, with solid growth in its AI business underpinning its performance as one of the top stocks in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Still, it hasn’t been a completely smooth ride: The shares plunged in September after the company gave a disappointing forecast because of weakness in its non-AI operations.
This quarter’s results have turned the focus squarely back to AI. Broadcom shares are now up more than 120% year-to-date, set for the best annual performance since their 2009 listing. Analysts have been scrambling to keep up, with multiple Wall Street firms hiking price targets and estimates following the earnings. Still, even a 19% jump in the average analyst target since the results has failed to keep pace with the shares, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
This trajectory has inevitably spurred comparisons with Nvidia, the stock market’s original AI winner. Nvidia followed its blowout earnings report in May 2023 with a series of estimate-beating results and quarterly forecasts. It has also defied skeptics who said 2024 would be tough for the shares. Nvidia is up about 167% this year, but has pulled back in the past two days — possibly because investors are considering the prospect of rising competition from Broadcom.
