Nvidia rises as PhilipCapital upgrades, citing 'market monopoly'
Justin Sullivan
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares rose in pre-market trading on Monday as investment firm PhilipCapital upgraded the semiconductor giant after its second-quarter results last week that were seen as a "blowout." 
Analyst Maximilian Koeswoyo raised the firm's rating on Nvidia (NVDA) shares to buy from accumulate and boosted the price target to $645 from $440, noting the company looks to have a "market monopoly" in GPUs, as revenue doubled and data center sales have nearly tripled year-over-year.
Additionally, the company saw a return to growth in its gaming business and while revenue from professional visualization has continued to decline, data center growth more than made up for it, especially as Nvidia is working with suppliers to boost capacity throughout the rest of the fiscal year.
Nvidia's (NVDA) chips are produced by global foundry Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM).
"NVDA believes data centers are shifting to accelerated computing as it is deemed as the most cost-effective and energy-efficient way of computing," Koeswoyo wrote in an investor note.
"This platform enabled the generative AI technology, which provides a significant productivity boost to a lot of workloads," Koeswoyo continued. "This, in turn, creates further demand for such accelerated computing platform. The company sees this as a long-term industry transition, which will provide a sustained strong demand growth for its Data Center business."
Analysts are largely cautious on Nvidia (NVDA). It has a HOLD rating from Seeking Alpha authors, while Wall Street analysts rate it a STRONG BUY. Conversely, Seeking Alpha's quant system, which consistently beats the market, rates NVDA a HOLD.

More on Nvidia

Nvidia's Q2 Vs. The Fed: Stock Valuation Might Continue To Rationalize
Nvidia: A Moat In AI GPU Technology
Nvidia: It's Good To Be The King Of AI