5 big analyst AI moves: ’Uniquely catalyst-rich’ months ahead for SpaceX

Here are the biggest analyst moves in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) for this week. 

Loop Capital downgrades Apple after supply chain checks reveal no iPhone recovery plan

Brokerage firm Loop Capital this week downgraded Apple to Hold from Buy and cut its price target to $330 from $370, after supply chain checks revealed Apple has no plans to recover the 13 million iPhone shipments cut in the second half of 2026.

Analyst Ananda Baruah said Apple previously reduced September- and December-quarter iPhone shipments by 10%, with Loop having initially believed those units could be made up through 2027 as the reductions were supply-related rather than demand-driven.

"This no longer appears to be the case," Baruah wrote.

Loop lowered its December-quarter iPhone unit forecast to 79 million from the Street’s 85 million, cutting its average selling price (ASP) estimate to $1,123 from $1,239. For calendar 2027, it raised its unit forecast to 260 million but cut ASP to $1,096 from $1,235, lowering iPhone revenue to $285 billion from $315 billion and trimming EPS to $9.76 from $10.11.

The broker also flagged potential gross margin risk as memory costs keep rising, lowering its normalized EPS estimate to $11 from $12 and applying Apple’s median P/E of 30 times to arrive at the new target.

"We continue to like AAPL’s longer-term share gain and Services story… but believe the stock also requires a fundamental catalyst reset after its recent stock appreciation," Baruah said.

JPMorgan upgrades Intel as pullback from peak makes risk-reward more balanced

JPMorgan has upgraded Intel to Neutral from Underweight, saying the risk/reward is now much more balanced as the stock approaches the bank’s $85 price target after pulling back roughly 40% from its June peak, compared with a 20-25% decline for the broader chip group.

Analyst Harlan Sur noted that since JPMorgan downgraded the stock in November 2022, Intel’s server x86 CPU revenue share has fallen from 77% to 53% and its PC CPU share from 81% to 68%, with a few more quarters of share losses expected, particularly in server CPUs.

In foundry, Intel appears to be making strong inroads on yields and new customer engagements, though it generated barely $1 billion in annualized external foundry revenue in the first half of 2026, compared with $150 billion for TSMC.

Sur said that since Lip Bu Tan became CEO, execution has improved in Intel’s core client and data center compute markets and in next-generation manufacturing. "Despite near-term concerns on AI infrastructure spending sustainability, we believe increasing agentic AI workloads (CPU intensive) and a very tight supply chain for leading edge silicon should drive continued positive EPS revisions in the upcoming earnings season and through CY27," he wrote.

JPMorgan’s 2028 EPS estimates sit about 15% above consensus.

"Risk/reward is more balanced at current levels and we move to a Neutral rating," Sur said.

Citi opens positive Catalyst Watch on SpaceX, sees coming months as "uniquely catalyst-rich"

Earlier in the week, Citi opened a positive 90-day Catalyst Watch on SpaceX, arguing the coming months will be "uniquely catalyst rich," after the company reported revenue that more than doubled in the third quarter and posted net income of $4.4 billion, its first profitable quarter as a public company.

Growth was driven largely by SpaceX’s AI segment, with space and connectivity businesses also expanding. CEO Elon Musk also offered some of his most detailed comments yet on a potential merger with Tesla, saying the move would be "a good idea" and confirming for the first time that special committees had been formed to discuss a potential union.

Musk said he expects annual recurring revenue (ARR) to reach between $500 billion and $1 trillion by end-2027, driven by surging demand for data-center space amid the AI boom.

Citi, which rates the stock Buy, pointed to six factors behind its positive catalyst watch: SpaceX’s "track record of beats/raises" expected to continue into the fourth quarter; Flight 15 as "a monumental space-industry catalyst that sets the stage for rapid reusability on a scale never before demonstrated in launch"; dollar-per-watt economics "trending significantly above consensus expectations"; an accelerated Grok model release cadence; the possibility of more detail on SpaceX’s power-generation solutions before year-end; and further clarity on its "evolving mobile strategy."

"We’ve described Buy-rated SPCX as being in the midst of a catalyst-rich 2-3 year arc, and we see the next 2-3 months in particular as uniquely catalyst rich even within that timeline that supports our positive investment thesis," Citi analysts said.

Buy Lam Research on pullback, Mizuho says

Mizuho has reiterated its Outperform rating on Lam Research and recommended buying the stock after a significant pullback following quarterly results, trimming its price target to $360 from $365.

Analyst Vijay Rakesh highlighted that Lam expects wafer fab equipment (WFE) spending to grow more than 29% in 2027 to over $200 billion, after rising about 42% to roughly $155 billion this year. "We are buyers on the pullback, as new greenfield fabs, NAND/HBM/Terafab position for upside," he wrote, also flagging Tesla’s comments pointing to "10s of $B WFE" from Terafab in early 2028 and $100 billion long-term.

Mizuho highlighted the emergence of SLC NAND as a major tailwind, with each 1 percentage point mix shift requiring 2% more NAND wafer capacity — a market where Lam holds about 90% share. NAND revenue rose 38% in the September quarter and foundry grew 28%. The broker estimates Lam’s revenue will grow 37% next year, ahead of 30% consensus, and believes Lam sees 10 new tier 1 fabs coming online in 2027.

"We see LRCX well positioned with: 1) wide competitive moats, 2) secular technology trends with HPC/AI/ML, HBM/CoWoS/TSV, GAA/BPD, and 3) rising capital intensity at the leading edge," Rakesh said.

Lam reported September-quarter revenue of $8.22 billion and EPS of $2.20, broadly in line with consensus, with gross margin rising 40 basis points sequentially to 52.4%. December-quarter guidance of $8.6 billion in revenue and EPS of $2.33 came in slightly above expectations.

AI bubble exists but will not burst yet: Yardeni

This week, Financial research firm Yardeni Research introduced an AI Bubble Meter, built using Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.1, which it says confirms a bubble exists in AI-related stocks but shows it is not yet close to bursting.

The tool has two dials. The Conditions dial measures whether a bubble exists by drawing on the setups that preceded the 1999-2000 tech bust and the 2006-2007 housing bust, and currently reads 83 out of 100. The Triggers dial tracks whether the forces that ended past booms — a credit boom and a sustained rise in the cost of capital — are underway, and reads just 34.

"The meter says there’s a bubble, but it’s not about to burst," Yardeni wrote.

One trigger has kicked in, with the two-year Treasury yield up 115 basis points from its December low, but credit is not stretched outside AI-related areas of the economy. "The preconditions of a bubble are in place and have been for a while, but the forces that ended past booms are only partially present," the firm said.

Yardeni noted that since 1965, quarters with high Conditions and low Triggers readings were followed by an S&P 500 bear market within two years only 9% of the time, with a median inflation-adjusted gain of 18.3% over that period. When both dials read high, the odds of a bear market rose to 42% with a median loss of 12.5%.

"But the Triggers dial is the one to watch: If it starts rising toward High, so do the risks," Yardeni said, flagging the two-year yield and signs of idle capacity in hyperscalers’ third-quarter results as key things to monitor.