Nvidia Handed Upgrades as Sales, Outlook Beat Street

Analysts are cheering Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and guidance on Friday, prompting a slew of upgrades.

Barclays (NYSE:BCS) raised the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker’s price target to $20 from $16 on a “buy” rating, while Jefferies raised the target to $16 from $14 on a “hold rating” and UBS (NYSE:UBS) lifted its target to $17.50 from $15.50 on a “buy” rating.

RBC and Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) both raised Nvidia’s price target by a dollar, while Susquehanna, BMO, Stifel and Wedbush raised the target by two dollars.

The series of upgrades followed quarterly revenue reported late Thursday that topped both Wall Street and Nvidia’s own expectations, as well as third-quarter guidance of $1.15 billion to $1.25 billion, ahead of $1.09 billion forecasted by analysts.

The company, which makes chips called graphics processing units used in personal computers and video game consoles, has recently been pushing into mobile as well. Lately, sales among tablets, particularly within Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) devices, has also been improving, helping to offset slowing PC sales.

On Thursday, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said the company’s investments in mobile and visual computing are paying off and that Tegra sales, the processor used in mobile devices, is reaching new records as “tablets come into their own.”

Shares of Nvidia were up 4% premarket on Friday but have since retreated.