Shares of Marvell Technology (MRVL 7.13%), the system-on-a-chip semiconductor manufacturer, jumped 7.6% through 12:05 p.m. ET Wednesday after Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore raised his price target to $80 a share.
And that's not the only reason.
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Why Morgan Stanley likes Marvell stock
Moore (not the same guy who wrote Moore's Law) forecasts Marvell to earn $2.28 per share in 2026, and values the stock at 35 times forward earnings. "Marvell is firmly in the AI winners camp," writes Moore in a note covered on StreetInsider.com today, but "sentiment has swung aggressively negative" -- and now Marvell stock is down about 33% from its peak back in late January.
Speaking of artificial intelligence, though, the other big Marvell news today is that Fubon Research is reporting interest in Microsoft (MSFT 0.10%) in upgrading from 3nm to a more advanced 2nm for its upcoming Maia300 AI chip -- which Marvell will produce. Fubon notes that the change is pushing back production (and revenue) for Marvell from Q1 2026 into Q4 2026 -- but the analyst thinks the chance to sell Microsoft a more advanced chip costing as much as $8,000 per unit "represents a substantial opportunity for Marvell."
Is Marvell stock a buy?
Fubon is guessing the new chip could add $2.4 billion to Marvell's revenue in 2026 and as much as $12 billion in 2027 -- a substantial sum when you consider that Marvell did only $5.8 billion in business in 2024!
Does this make Marvell stock a buy? It depends. The stock costs a steep 47 times this year's estimated free cash flow. But analysts expect Marvell's FCF to double over the next two years, alongside the doubling in revenue. If the growth materializes as planned, Marvell stock actually could be cheap enough to buy.
