Can ASML’s stock rally extend above €2,000?

Bank of America’s latest note on ASML reframes a market fear into a bullish thesis: the surge of lithography start-ups trying to crack EUV isn’t a moat-erosion story — it’s proof that whoever controls the lithography bottleneck controls the entire leading-edge chip industry.

With a Buy/Top Pick rating and a price objective of €2,452, BofA sees the stock’s current level as an entry point into an irreplaceable chokepoint of the AI era.

The Bottleneck Creates the Opportunity

BofA analyst Jérôme Ramel and the Global Research team are addressing a growing investor concern head-on: a wave of start-ups — backed by serious capital — are attempting to build alternative lithography machines to challenge ASML’s near-monopoly in Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, the technology that physically etches the world’s most advanced chips.

The report argues this competitive activity is being widely misread. Rather than signaling a weakening moat, BofA sees it as the clearest possible evidence that lithography has become the single most critical bottleneck in scaling AI and leading-edge semiconductor capacity. The more valuable the bottleneck, the more intensely competitors will try — and fail — to replicate it.

ASML Holding NV ADR (ASML): Trading at $1,740.99 (+2.15% Friday) || Pre-market: $1,785.67 (+2.57%) || Market Cap: $685.21B || 52-Week Range: $716.20 – $1,999.96

Productivity Is the Moat

The analyst’s core defense thesis rests on wafers per hour (wph) — the measure of how many silicon wafers a machine can process in an hour, which directly determines chip manufacturing throughput and economics. BofA highlights ASML’s roadmap to more than double productivity from 230 wph today to >500 wph, a trajectory that would make switching to any unproven architecture economically irrational for chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Customers betting tens of billions on fabs don’t gamble on unproven tools.

Competitors Could Be Allies

A nuanced insight in the note: many of the technologies being developed by litho start-ups may end up complementary, not competitive. Specifically:

• Higher-power accelerator-based light sources could actually boost ASML tool productivity rather than replace the machines
• Wavelength tunability could extend EUV scaling limits beyond what conventional EUV achieves today

This reframes the entire narrative — the innovation ecosystem forming around lithography could, paradoxically, strengthen ASML’s position by feeding into its own roadmap.

The One Real Risk — And Its Timeline

BofA doesn’t dismiss the threat entirely. A vertically integrated challenger — one combining a superior light source with differentiated optics, stages, and proprietary process technology — would represent a genuine long-term risk. The key qualifier: unlikely within the next decade. This is a cogent structural risk, not a near-term catalyst for concern.

Numbers Validate the Thesis

The earnings picture backs BofA’s conviction:

Four consecutive double-digit EPS beats. Consensus EPS estimates have been revised +25% over the past 30 days and +59.65% over the past year — the market is still catching up to the demand reality. FY2026 consensus now sits at $43.61 EPS on $49.50B revenue, with FY2027 projecting $60.14 EPS on $63.22B revenue.

The Price Target Decoded

BofA’s price objective of €2,452 on the Amsterdam listing implies meaningful upside from current levels. At $1,740.99 on the ADR, the stock has risen +141% over the past year — yet the analyst reiterates this as a Top Pick, suggesting the productivity roadmap and AI-driven demand cycle have further to run than the rally implies.