Analysts are intrested in these 5 stocks: ( (DDOG) ), ( (TXN) ), ( (DELL) ), ( (NOW) ) and ( (NKE) ). Here is a breakdown of their recent ratings and the rationale behind them.
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New trading tool for DDOG bullsDatadog is back in the spotlight as Guggenheim’s Howard Ma upgrades DDOG to Buy and lifts the price target to $175, seeing 50% upside. The call leans heavily on Datadog’s role as a prime beneficiary of AI-driven data growth and rising IT complexity, with its tailored backend architecture viewed as a powerful moat against rivals and open-source tools.
The analyst argues that Datadog’s diversified revenue across infrastructure monitoring, logs and APM sets it apart in observability, while its Bits AI agentic tools could expand the market rather than shrink it. Concerns over Datadog’s exposure to OpenAI have eased, as the off-boarding looks slower than feared and newer AI-native customers like Anthropic ramp quickly.
Looking ahead, Ma now models revenue growth of 27% in 2026, with operating margins above 24%, supported by robust new ARR trends despite a likely slowdown from 2025’s pace. Even assuming a softer 2027 as OpenAI spending normalizes, growth is expected to reaccelerate in 2028 as AI observability gains traction. The valuation case is built on Datadog’s potential to sustain high growth while defending its technology lead.
Texas Instruments is drawing fresh investor attention as Stifel’s Tore Svanberg upgrades TXN to Buy and raises the price target to $250. After a heavy six-year capex cycle that weighed on margins, the firm sees TXN entering a free cash flow upturn just as the analog industry heads into a new upcycle, making its timing look favorable.
The call rests on five pillars, including a structural FCF inflection as capital intensity eases, long-term benefits from the Silicon Labs deal, and growing exposure to AI data centers. Stifel also highlights TXN’s ongoing shift to 300mm wafer production and a renewed push to gain analog market share, suggesting the company is finally positioned to fully capitalize on demand.
Scenario work shows TXN as attractively valued on a 2027 FCF basis, with the $250 target implying a still-reasonable multiple and potential upside to $286 in a bull case. As data centers demand more efficient power solutions, Stifel expects this segment to reach about one-fifth of TXN’s sales, adding a structural growth driver. With depreciation headwinds set to reverse and CHIPS Act incentives in the mix, the risk-reward now looks skewed to the upside.
Dell Technologies gets a more cautious debut from Wolfe Research’s George Notter, who initiates coverage with a Hold rating. He sees upside in both revenue and earnings over time, especially as AI servers grow from 27% of sales to potentially over 40%, but warns that today’s extreme memory pricing environment could cap the upside.
On the bullish side, Dell offers investors a relatively cheap AI hardware play at roughly 11.9x projected 2027 EPS, with an opportunity to benefit from issues at Super Micro and from big customers like CoreWeave and xAI. Its strong enterprise relationships should also help as on-premise AI deployments grow, and the traditional server business could find new life in inferencing-heavy, CPU-based agentic AI workloads.
The bear case centers on volatile memory markets, where prices have jumped more than 500% year on year and supply is tight. Notter worries this could squeeze margins, pull orders forward or delay purchases, particularly in PCs, which still represent about 40% of Dell sales. Aggressive cost control and share buybacks are positives, but he prefers to wait for a better entry point, especially with revenue potentially constrained by memory availability.
ServiceNow faces a reality check as UBS’s Karl Keirstead downgrades NOW to Neutral and slashes the price target to $100. Once his standout Buy in application software for the AI era, ServiceNow now looks less differentiated as customers rethink their budgets and their approach to workflow automation.
Keirstead stresses that clients are not abandoning ServiceNow as a system of record, but some are exploring AI models to build lighter, custom workflows on top or to resolve more tickets automatically. That trend could pressure seat growth in customer service management, a meaningful part of revenue, while enthusiasm for using ServiceNow as the central AI “agent orchestration” layer appears muted.
Compounding the issue, he sees growing evidence that enterprise budgets are being redirected toward AI infrastructure and data projects, crowding out more traditional software spend. With expectations for only modest beats, trimmed cRPO growth and a 2026 FCF multiple already at a premium to peers, UBS argues the shares are fairly valued. Investors may need to reset expectations for how much AI will expand ServiceNow’s growth and margins in the near term.
Nike also moves to the sidelines as Piper Sandler’s Anna Andreeva downgrades NKE to Neutral with a $50 target. She worries the athleisure boom may be at or near its peak, just as Nike approaches tough comparisons in its high-flying running category and struggles to replace fading classics.
The report flags a U.S. footwear market where performance running remains healthy but sport lifestyle appears saturated, with look-alike brands and trendsetters buying less frequently. At the same time, legacy Nike classics like the Dunk are rapidly shrinking and may become immaterial, leaving a multi-billion dollar hole in sportswear volumes that the company has yet to fill with fresh innovation at scale.
Frequency of shoe purchases is already well above pre-pandemic levels, and with consumers on edge, competition is likely to intensify around product novelty and design. Andreeva notes that Nike’s leadership refresh still leans heavily on long-tenured insiders, raising questions about whether truly new ideas are coming. At around 22–25x forward earnings and with no near-term catalyst before an Investor Day in the second half of 2026, she sees limited reasons to chase the stock now.