Technology

Jefferies Has 3 Chip and Chip Equipment Stocks With Gigantic Upside Potential

One thing a brutal sell-off will do is bring stocks back to places where they look incredibly attractive. One area that was being demolished all year, prior to the recent selling, is the semiconductor and some chip capital equipment stocks. A new report from Jefferies is basically more positive on certain areas within the industries, and it gave a quick-hit look at some of the stocks in the firm’s sector coverage.

Much of the Jefferies information, which was gleaned from the firm’s two-day semiconductor meetings in Chicago recently, seems to be in line with what we are seeing from the other top firms on Wall Street. The sector seems to have bottomed, and business should start to pick up.

When we screened the Jefferies coverage list we found three stocks rated Buy that could have huge upside potential. With the exception of one, they are probably only suited for extremely aggressive accounts.

AMD

Wall Street seems pretty much evenly split here between bankruptcy and a buyout. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) designs and integrates technology that powers millions of intelligent devices, including personal computers, tablets, game consoles and cloud servers that define the new era of surround computing. AMD has had a roller-coaster ride the past couple of years, with analysts very on and off again on the company as it continues to try and remake itself.

The Jefferies team met with AMD management, which was very positive on virtual reality (VR) applications. AMD believes that the first applications that get traction will be consumer games, which makes sense. LiquidVR is AMD’s virtual reality development kit, which it developed to make VR as comfortable as possible by reducing latency and enabling smooth and high frame rates.

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With gaming chips, high-bandwidth memory chips, new finFet designs and possible graphic processor units being used in data centers, the AMD story seems better than the doom-and-gloom that seems to follow the company.

The Jefferies price target for the stock is $3.50. The Thomson/First Call consensus target is $2.24. Shares closed most recently at $1.78. Trading to the Jefferies target would be a gigantic 94% gain.

Lattice Semiconductor

This stock also has huge upside and has had a very difficult year. Lattice Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: LSCC) is the self-described global leader in smart connectivity solutions, providing market leading intellectual property and low-power, small form-factor devices that enable more than 8,000 global customers to quickly deliver innovative and differentiated cost and power efficient products. Its broad end-market exposure extends from consumer electronics to industrial equipment, communications infrastructure and licensing.

The company posted a loss in the second quarter and got hit hard, dropping almost 35%. The company bought Silicon Image back in March, and costs associated with the deal may have dragged the quarter down. The company just released a new line of port controllers that deliver space, cost and power efficient designs to support the latest USB Type-C interfaces, enabling designers to quickly develop next-generation products.

The Jefferies price target is a gigantic $8, but the consensus target is even higher at $8.17. The stock closed Thursday at $4.25. Trading to the target would be an 89% gain.

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Applied Materials

This semiconductor capital equipment leader has lagged the overall tech market over the past year. Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) actually now is trading below all the moving averages, and for patient investors it may be a high-quality pick now.

The company is the global leader in precision materials engineering solutions for the semiconductor, flat panel display and solar photovoltaic industries. Applied Material’s technologies help make innovations like smartphones, flat screen TVs and solar panels more affordable and accessible to consumers and businesses around the world.

The analysts are very positive on the stock, and see the company benefiting not only the semiconductor side of the business, but also from larger, higher resolution and flexible screens on the display side of the business. Many on Wall Street were disappointed when the merger with Tokyo Electron was called off earlier this year, and the stock has been out of favor ever since.

The company reported lousy earnings earlier this month, and the stock hit a two-year low on the Monday sell-off this week. The company reported third-quarter revenue that missed Wall Street’s forecast and offered lackluster fourth-quarter guidance. Despite the rough patch the company has hit, many on Wall Street think that film companies like Applied Materials will benefit from the new Intel and Micron Technology 3D XPoint technology, which is an entirely new class of nonvolatile memory that can help turn immense amounts of data into valuable information in real time.

Applied Materials investors are paid a 2.52% dividend. The $25 Jefferies price target is higher than the consensus target of $22.14. Shares closed Thursday at $15.93, so hitting the target would be a stellar 57% gain.

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Clearly there is some inherent danger in speculating on these stocks. Still, for aggressive accounts that trade technology, carving out some capital to take a shot on these is probably a solid bet after a wicked market sell-off.

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