Fox Business
- Markets guru Larry McDonald took a dig at Citi, which raised its price target for Nvidia's stock following its rally of over 200%.
- "The clown show rolls on," McDonald said, seemingly mocking Wall Street's tendency to follow the market rather than lead it.
- Last year, Citi had trimmed its price target for Nvidia, citing a decline in gaming demand.
Citi just boosted its price target for Nvidia's stock – but markets guru Larry McDonald isn't impressed.
"The clown show rolls on - cut the price target on the lows - raise the price target on the highs - sell side 'research,'" markets guru and founder of "The Bear Traps Report" said in a tweet on Monday.
He seemed to suggest it's typical for Wall Street analysts to simply raise targets once shares rally and cut them when prices have already fallen -- thereby following the market rather than leading it. Citi's move to raise its target for Nvidia follows a massive year-to-date rally of more than 200% for the chipmaker.
The New York-based bank lifted its goal for Nvidia shares to $520 apiece from $420 earlier, with analyst Atif Malik adding the semiconductor company's stock could surge as high as $600.
Shares in the Santa Clara-based firm rose 2.81% to $464.61 on Monday.
"To us, it is clear the market for [artificial-intelligence] accelerators is bound to grow at a blistering pace," he said in a note, per MarketWatch. He added that Nvidia will have "a substantial advantage in AI performance versus AMD going forward," that'll see the company hold about a 90% share of the AI accelerator market.
Citi has flip-flopped on its forecasts for Nvidia. Last year, the bank slashed its price target for the chipmaker to $285 a share on faltering gaming demand, per several outlets.
Nvidia has stunned investors this year with an eye-popping 218% surge, thanks to a boom in artificial intelligence technologies. The rally has pushed Nvidia into the elite $1 trillion market cap club for the first time.
The sizzling stock gains have also pumped up the wealth of the company's CEO Jensen Huang to $39.2 billion, making him the 34th richest person in the world, per the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index.