Arm and AMD power semiconductor rally on Wall Street upgrades, SOXX +3.5%

Arm Holdings surged 9.2% on Thursday as UBS and TD Cowen lifted their price targets ahead of the company's July 29 earnings report, leading a session in which every major chip name advanced and the SOXX semiconductor ETF climbed 3.5%. The S&P 500 added 0.81% to 7,543.64 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.3% to 26,206, with gains underpinned by a drop in weekly jobless claims to their lowest print since May and a retreat in oil prices despite renewed U.S.-Iran tensions.

Today's biggest movers

Arm jumps 9.2% as UBS and TD Cowen raise targets ahead of July 29 earnings

Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARM) closed at $327.87, up $27.75 on volume of 7.1 million shares, as analyst conviction built ahead of the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings report due July 29. UBS raised its price target on ARM to $470, and TD Cowen lifted its target to $475 from $265, both maintaining Buy ratings and citing strong demand in AI and cloud computing. The upgrades follow ARM's fiscal 2026 full-year results, which showed revenue of $4.92 billion, up 23% year-over-year, with net income of $904 million. Wall Street consensus for the July 29 report calls for revenue of $1.27 billion, up roughly 21% from the year-prior quarter. ARM has risen 185.78% year-to-date, making it one of the strongest performers in the AI universe tracked here; the stock pulled back sharply during last week's Samsung-led semiconductor selloff before recovering this week.

Lam Research gains 6% as four analyst houses raise targets on equipment cycle

Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) closed at $353.17, up 6.01%, as a cluster of analyst upgrades cemented the bullish view on semiconductor equipment spending. Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target to $500, Susquehanna lifted its target to $475, Morgan Stanley raised to $404 with an Overweight rating, and TD Cowen moved its target to $400, all pointing to sustained demand for etch and deposition tools driven by AI chip fabrication. Lam supplies equipment critical to leading-edge AI chip production and is a direct beneficiary of the current wafer fab buildout cycle. The stock is up 90.84% year-to-date and reports its next quarter in late July.

AMD climbs 5.7% with Goldman at $640 and AI Day set for July 23

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) closed at $546.72, recovering from a brief dip to $516 earlier this week that followed Samsung's earnings and triggered a sector-wide reset. Goldman Sachs raised its price target on AMD to $640 on July 5, citing the company's long-term position in server CPU-for-inference adoption, and expects AMD's AI Advancing Day on July 23 to deliver a constructive forward outlook on server CPU demand sustainability. AMD guided second-quarter revenue to approximately $11.2 billion, up roughly 46% year-over-year, with a non-GAAP gross margin of about 56%; formal Q2 results are scheduled for August 4. The stock is up 144.65% year-to-date and was among the leaders in the July 6 session as well.

Palo Alto snaps back 5.5% as BTIG names it top cybersecurity pick

Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: PANW) closed at $338.31, up 5.53%, bouncing back after BTIG raised its price target to $380 and named PANW its top sector pick, maintaining a Buy rating. The firm highlighted the company's 31% year-over-year revenue growth and expanding AI-driven security platform as key differentiators. PANW had pulled back in Wednesday's session after reaching a record high, as noted in Wednesday's recap, before Thursday's broad security-sector rebound. Evercore ISI maintained an Outperform rating, though it trimmed its price target to $320. PANW is up 88.61% year-to-date and 29.86% over the past month.

Meta Platforms rises 4.7% on Erste upgrade and BNP's pre-earnings optimism

Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) closed at $631.48 on Thursday, up 4.70%, after Erste Group upgraded the shares to Buy from Hold and BNP Paribas reiterated its Outperform rating with a $955 price target ahead of Meta's second-quarter earnings report, which the bank expects in the last week of July. Wells Fargo, which set a $767 price target on July 2, has cited AI-driven advertising revenue acceleration as the central medium-term driver. Analyst attention is focused on how Meta's substantial AI infrastructure investment is beginning to appear in top-line growth; the company has been a consistent beneficiary of improved ad-targeting from its in-house AI models. META is down 2.91% year-to-date, reflecting a difficult first half, though Thursday's move represents a significant recovery from recent lows.

Notable but quieter

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE: DELL) added 4.22% to $450.22 after Evercore ISI raised its price target to $500; Dell is sitting on a $51.3 billion AI server backlog and has guided approximately $60 billion in AI server sales for the full year, with 88% year-over-year growth in AI-related infrastructure in its most recent quarter. CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) gained 3.81% to $198.40, with Benchmark raising its price target to $230 and UBS to $235; management has noted the Falcon Flex platform is approaching $2 billion in annual recurring revenue, with a growing pipeline for its AI Detection and Response product. Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) advanced 3.20% to $401.11 after confirming a renewed chip supply agreement with Apple through 2031, in a deal exceeding $30 billion in value and covering wireless filters and custom AI silicon. On the downside, Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) dropped 2.45% to $162.50, now down 35.93% year-to-date, with no fresh company-specific news. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR) slipped 2.41% to $129.04, a rare red print in a session that otherwise rewarded technology exposure broadly.

What to watch

AMD's AI Advancing Day on July 23 is the next hard catalyst for the chip sector; Goldman Sachs expects CEO Lisa Su to outline sustained server CPU demand ahead of AMD's August 4 earnings release. ARM Holdings and Meta Platforms are both expected to report second-quarter results around July 29. For context on Cloudflare (NYSE: NET), which surged 8.6% earlier this week, earnings are scheduled in early August alongside several other AI software names in the cohort. On the macro side, June CPI data is due next week and will inform Federal Reserve rate-path expectations; lower rates have been a quiet tailwind for growth and AI stocks through the first half of July. The second-quarter earnings season for the broader AI universe runs from approximately July 22 through August 8, with the density of reports highest in the July 29-August 1 window.

Not investment advice.