Why is Nokia stock up over 2% today?

Nokia stock rallied 2.5% in pre-open trading today after Finnish research firm IndeRes upgraded the shares from Sell to Reduce and raised its price target to EUR 7 from EUR 6.5, citing third-quarter adjusted operating profit that clearly exceeded both its own estimates and broader consensus forecasts, alongside improved visibility into Nokia’s growth trajectory in optical and IP networks.

The upgrade was underpinned by Nokia’s Q3 earnings beat reported earlier in the week, in which the company posted adjusted EPS of $0.10 against a consensus of $0.08 and revenue of $5.84 billion versus expectations of $5.72 billion — a 9.7% year-over-year revenue increase. Northland Securities separately raised its full-year 2026 EPS estimate to $0.42 from $0.40, while management guided for Q4 net sales to jump 20%–24% quarter-over-quarter and for full-year operating profit to land above the midpoint of its outlook range. Adding further strategic weight, Nokia and Nvidia announced at GTC Berlin that nearly 20 global telecom operators — including T-Mobile, BT, Deutsche Telekom, and Orange — are now running or piloting AI-RAN technology built on Nokia’s anyRAN software and Nvidia’s Aerial RAN Computer platform. With Nokia’s ex-dividend date falling on October 27, some incremental dividend-capture buying may also be supporting pre-market demand today.

The broader market is providing a constructive backdrop, with the S&P 500 up 0.3%, the Dow Jones up 0.5%, and the Nasdaq up 0.3% in pre-market trading, reflecting a mild risk-on tone across U.S. equities.

Taken together, a timely analyst upgrade, a string of post-earnings estimate revisions, a powerful AI infrastructure partnership gaining real-world traction, and an imminent dividend date have converged to lift Nokia shares in pre-market trading, offering the stock a potential stabilization point after a sharp multi-week pullback from October highs.