This week in tech: Oracle and Adobe serve up earnings beats; AMD’s AI reveal

By Louis Juricic and Sarina Isaacs

Investing.com — Here is your weekly Pro Recap on the biggest headlines out of a big earnings week for tech: better-than-expected quarters out of Oracle and Adobe; new details from AMD on its AI offerings; a winning streak for Tesla shares; and a big M&A move from Nasdaq.

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Oracle delivers

Oracle (NYSE:) shares shot higher Monday after it said Q4 earnings came in at $1.67 per share, $0.09 better than what Wall Street was expecting, on above-par revenue of $13.8 billion.

Analysts cheered the results: Goldman Sachs called the report “solid,” upgrading the stock to Neutral from Sell with a $120 price target. Goldman said it was “encouraged by the pronounced step-up in IaaS revenue growth,” which it said “should position the company for durable share gains despite its late entry into IaaS.”

Wolfe Research and Deutsche Bank each kept their buy ratings on the stock and lifted their price targets on Oracle – to $140 from $130, and to $135 from $120, respectively.

All in all, the stock was up some 14% for the week vs. the prior Friday’s close, ending at $125.46.

AMD unveils AI details

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:) shares got a brief bump after the chipmaker unveiled details about its new artificial intelligence chip, although they ultimately ended the week 6.6% lower, easing off a year-to-date surge.

The chip, called the MI300X, will feature an accelerator that is designed to speed up processing times for generative AI programs like ChatGPT and other similar chatbots. Piper Sandler argued that the company has the “building blocks” to address the needs of both cloud and enterprise businesses.

Still, Morgan Stanley named rival NVIDIA (NASDAQ:) its Top Pick in the AI space “as the only company likely beating and raising due to AI in CY23,” and raised its price target to $500 from $450.

The analyst also raised the price target on AMD to $138 from $97, citing the broader boom in the industry that should help it through 2024 and beyond. But it said of AMD, “Unlike NVIDIA, the company is unlikely to post near term upside.”

It added, “Longer-term we still have conviction that the company’s server business remains on a share-gaining path, which will resume in a stronger way once budgets expand again to accommodate both AI investments and legacy infrastructure upgrades.”

In this same note, the analyst also raised price targets on Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:) and Intel (NASDAQ:).

Adobe’s solid quarter

Adobe Systems (NASDAQ:) on Thursday topped the analyst consensus on Q2 with earnings of $3.91 per share – $0.12 better than expectations – on revenue of $4.82B vs. the $4.77B estimate.

In response, Wells Fargo said Adobe “delivered solid Q2 upside, an uncharacteristic raise to [full-year] targets, and some new details around expected AI monetization,” raised its price target to $600 from $525, and maintained the company’s Overweight rating.

Deutsche Bank raised its price target on Buy-rated Adobe to $550 from $500 per share, calling it a “compelling opportunity” and adding, “Adobe reported solid F2Q results, but the star of the show, as expected, was generative AI.”

Meanwhile, Citi’s Adobe price target moved to $544 from $462. But it maintains its Neutral rating on the stock, saying, “We worry about leading indicators deteriorating as price tailwinds increasingly fade in the coming [quarters] and magnitude of [generative AI] monetization unlikely to be significant near term, with questions around conversion.”

Telsa concludes 13-day winning streak

Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:) ended trading Wednesday down 0.74%, ending a 13-day rally that saw its shares gain 29.3%. The company’s previous streak of 11 days was attained in January 2021.

The rally follows recent commitments made by General Motors (NYSE: NYSE:) and Ford Motor Company (NYSE:), which announced the adoption of the Tesla-designed North American Charging Standard (NACS) charging connector for electric vehicles.

Following those announcements, charging equipment makers such as Blink Charging (NASDAQ:), ChargePoint (NYSE:), and Tritium (NASDAQ:) also got on board, saying they too would offer chargers with the Tesla connector.

Shares were up some 5% for the week.

Nasdaq agrees to buy Adenza for $10.5B

Nasdaq Inc. (NASDAQ:) said it inked a deal to acquire Adenza, which provides risk management and regulatory software to the financial services industry, from private equity giant Thoma Bravo.

The deal, will have Nasdaq pay $5.75B cash and 85.6 million common shares, or approximately $10.5B total. Nasdaq says the deal will help accelerate “Nasdaq’s strategic vision to become the trusted fabric of the world’s financial system.”

The stock part of the consideration represents approximately 14.9% of Nasdaq’s total outstanding shares, and will make Thoma Bravo a strategic shareholder of the company.

Shares of Nasdaq lost some 1.8% for the week.

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Sam Boughedda, Scott Kanowsky, Michael Elkins, and Vlad Schepkov contributed to this report.