Marvell stock dips after Q4 tops expectations, but Wall Street highlights opportunities
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Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) shares dipped on Friday despite the semiconductor company beating expectations and raising guidance, however, several Wall Street firms came to its defense.
Wells Fargo analyst Gary Mobley, who rates shares equal weight but lowered the price target to $70 from $80, said the "upbeat" results combined with the broader pullback in the equity markets and chip sector make it tempting to be "constructive" on Marvell (MRVL), but there are a few negatives.
"However, based on our discussions with investors, MRVL seems to be a consensus long," Mobley wrote. "In addition, considering the fact MRVL shares remain one of the most expensive large-cap chip companies, we are sticking with our [equal weight] rating." 
For the fourth-quarter, Marvell Technology (MRVL) said it earned an adjusted $0.50 per share on $1.34 billion in revenue, up 68.33% year-over-year, beat expectations. 
It also forecast first-quarter revenue of $1.425 billion, topping expectations of $1.38 billion, which showed that business is still strong "across-the-board," Mobley explained.
Marvell (MRVL) shares fell less than 1% to $64.73 in premarket trading on Friday.
BMO Capital Markets analyst Dr. Ambrish Srivastava, who has an outperform rating and a $98 price target, noted that tailwinds are strong for Marvell (MRVL) in markets like cloud computing and 5G and it is executing which is translating to revenue. 
"Data center remains a source of strength, and similar to what we are seeing at Broadcom, the enterprise market is making a strong recovery lifting the company's business in that segment," Srivastava wrote in a note to clients. "Marvell also seems to be opening up additional new drivers for growth."
Last month, J.P. Morgan reiterated its overweight rating on Marvell (MRVL) ahead of earnings, as the firm expected "solid" results.