by Ian Cooper

Some of the most explosive opportunities can still be found in tech stocks this year, we said on January 10. Those included:

Apple (AAPL)

Morgan Stanley also believes Apple’s weakness was an opportunity.

The firm noted, “While near-term Product demand remains uneven (vs. Services outperforming), we believe this is captured in recent underperformance,” analysts at Morgan Stanley, reiterated an Overweight rating and $220 price target on the stock. Morgan Stanley believes that after 9 points of underperformance vs the S&P 500 in the last month, Apple shares are oversold, and they’d be buyers of weakness,” as noted by Investing.com.

JP Morgan also maintained its overweight rating on the stock, with a $225 price target.

Apple is also a top tech pick for Wedbush, which has a $250 price target. “In a nutshell, 2024 is the year for [Apple CEO Tim] Cook & Co. to show iPhone growth again and further monetize its golden installed base that Cupertino has built,” noted the firm.

Since January 10, Apple ran from about $184 to a high of $196.27. While it has since pulled back to $184, it could retest $196, even $200 again shortly.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) could test $200 this year, especially with the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, we noted on January 10. Since then, AMD ran from about $148 to a high of about $185. Now at $168.53, it’s still a strong opportunity.

For one, AMD just brought the AI PC race to “the world of desktop computers at CES 2024 with the debut of what it says is the world’s first desktop processor with a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU). Coming to AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 8000G series chips, which hit the market on Jan. 31, the NPU is designed to handle AI-based tasks on your desktop computer without having to send data to the cloud,” as noted by Yahoo Finance.

Two, AMD was also upgraded to a buy rating at Melius Research, which has a $188 price target on AMD. “AMD could have huge ramps for AI equipment later in 2024 and especially in 2025 – and we see meaningful upside to consensus,” Melius analysts wrote.

Also, as quoted by Investing.com, the firm added, “Generative AI is poised to deliver its ‘Halo Effect’ on IT spending, starting in 2024. If 2023 was the year of getting ready or ‘training’ large language models, then 2024 should be the year where production or ‘inferencing’ starts to kick in (more assistants and voice prompts help).”

Nvidia (NVDA)

Nvidia has been the most explosive of these three stocks since January 10.

Since our mention, NVDA ran from about $535 to a recent high of $697.57. While it’s likely to push higher on the AI boom, it has become technically stretched. We’d wait to buy on the next pullback. Helping, Nvidia just made several big announcements at CES 2024, including new chips for generative AI, PCs, gaming, and newer partnerships. NVDA also announced its newest GeForce RTX graphics cards, which offer 4K resolution and even ray tracing.

Bank of America says that by the end of the year, NVDA could see $700. For us, from its current price of $522.53, we’d like to see it test $600 short-term. By year-end, with the progress it’s making, it could see $1,000.

Even better, Goldman Sachs now has an $800 price target on NVDA.