Published 14m ago2026-09-11 10:48:05

Dell Technologies Positioned to Benefit From AI Infrastructure Spending Cycle, RBC Says

Dell Technologies (DELL) is well positioned to benefit from the multi-year artificial intelligence infrastructure spending cycle, which should help the computer maker to sustain results above long-term targets, RBC Capital Markets said in a client note emailed Friday.

The brokerage initiated its coverage of Dell with an outperform rating and a price target of $640. The company's shares gained 11% in Friday trade. The stock has gained 347% so far this year.

Earlier this month, Dell lifted its full-year outlook and reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results amid record AI server demand.

The company ended its fiscal second quarter with an AI server backlog of $95 billion and a continuously growing pipeline, despite converting about $132 billion into orders for the last 12 months, RBC analyst David Paige wrote in the note. The brokerage sees the current environment as constrained mainly by memory supplies rather than demand, and expects "meaningful" backlog to continue through fiscal 2027, providing visibility into the following fiscal year.

"Enterprise demand for AI investments, compute modernization, storage expansion and PC refresh should sustain results above long-term targets," Paige wrote.

Dell's portfolio across compute, personal computers, storage and servers should allow it to continue gaining market share, while its full-stack capabilities combined with key partnerships put it in a position to capture enterprise demand for turnkey AI infrastructure, RBC said.

The brokerage believes the company's proprietary storage portfolio is a "direct" profitability generator for its infrastructure solutions group, given that it carries structurally higher margins versus third-party or legacy solutions. "We expect storage margins to expand as Dell IP mix rises, with the legacy transition largely complete by year-end," Paige said.

The emergence of agentic AI is reinforcing the durability of Dell's AI demand, with senior management believing it's fundamentally expanding the total addressable market for graphics and traditional central processing units, according to RBC.

"We are seeing a growing trend of customers that require meaningful CPU compute capacity to support AI and agentic workflows," Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Clarke said during an earnings call earlier this month. "These workloads are creating incremental demand for traditional servers."

Clarke said Dell has gained more than 10 points of traditional server market share over the past two quarters and expects to continue gaining share in the current quarter.

Price: $564.63, Change: $+58.01, Percent Change: +11.45%

What else is happening in US Markets?

US Markets13h ago

New Zealand's Manufacturing Sector Expansion Slows in August

New Zealand's manufacturing sector showed continued expansion in August, but at a slower pace than seen in July, as cost-of-living pressures and the Middle East conflict continued to weigh on sentiment.The seasonally adjusted BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index for August was 53.1, down from 54.3 in July but still hovering above the 50 mark that separates expansion and contraction, and higher than the survey's long-term average of 52.5.BusinessNZ Director of Advocacy, Catherine Beard, said that the survey is closely watching the employment subindex that's sitting right on the breakeven mark, also the weakest among all sub-indexes.Deliveries were the second lowest subindex at 52.6, down from July's 55.5, while finished stocks rose the highest at 56.4 from 53.4, followed by new orders, which rose to 54.9 from 53.6. Production fell to 54.2 from 57.1.Sentiment softened further in August with 55.7% of comments negative, though a "good number" of respondents said steady or improving order books was a positive note, as new orders and finished stocks were the only two sub-indexes that showed monthly growth.All sub-industries except "other" expanded in August, with food and beverage, textiles and non-metal manufacturing moving from contraction to expansion, while the decline in the overall PMI reflected softer readings in previously stronger industries rather than a broad-based weakening, BusinessNZ said.BusinessNZ added that the survey data shows positive economic momentum in the third quarter and supports its forecast of 2% gross domestic product growth in the second half of the year.

^NZ50

US Markets13h ago

Japan's August Wholesale Inflation Hovers Near Three-Year High, Cementing Rate Hike Bets

Japan's producer price index (PPI) rose faster than anticipated in August, hovering near its highest level in more than three and a half years and highlighting persistent cost pressures weighed down by a weak yen, preliminary Bank of Japan data showed Friday.Wholesale inflation increased 7.6% year over year in August, topping the 7.4% consensus forecast tracked by Investing.com. However, it remained near the 7.7% revised growth in July, which was the fastest since February 2023.Nonferrous metals saw the biggest movement, rising to 43.3% in August from 40.7% in the previous month, followed by scrap and waste, information and communications equipment, and petroleum and coal products."The pickup would suggest that upstream price pressures remain elevated, potentially sustaining the pass-through of higher input costs to consumer prices," analysts at ING said in a Sept. 4 note.On a monthly basis, corporate goods prices decreased 0.2%, reversing the 0.4% revised gain in July and marking the first monthly drop in one year.The persistent wholesale inflation reinforces expectations for near-term monetary tightening. Most respondents in a Reuters poll anticipate the central bank will raise its benchmark interest rate to 1.25% from 1.0% at its upcoming policy meeting on Sept. 17-18.A central bank board member earlier flagged the need for an interest rate increase due to increasing cost pressures.The central bank last lifted borrowing costs to a 31-year high of 1% in June

Nikkei 225

US Markets17h ago

Oracle Tops First-Quarter Expectations as Cloud Infrastructure Revenue More Than Doubles

Oracle's (ORCL) fiscal first-quarter results surpassed Wall Street's estimates as cloud infrastructure sales more than doubled year over year.Revenue increased 30% year-on-year to $19.35 billion during the three months through August, above the FactSet-polled consensus of $19.14 billion. Adjusted earnings per share rose to $1.92 from $1.47 a year earlier, compared with the Street's $1.74 view.Cloud sales advanced 62% to $11.61 billion, driven by a 121% jump in infrastructure to $7.39 billion. Wall Street expected $11.51 billion in overall cloud revenue.Oracle's remaining performance obligations -- future commitments arising from contractual relationships -- soared $209 billion year-on-year to $664 billion. The company booked more than $30 billion of AI cloud contracts in the fiscal first quarter."Customer demand for AI cloud training and inferencing services continues to grow faster than supply," the cloud computing company said late Thursday.Oracle delivered more than 300,000 graphics processing units to AI cloud customers since the end of May, nearly triple the capacity shipped during the fourth quarter.Shares were up 6.8% in after-hours trading. The stock is down 22% this year through Thursday close.Oracle's software segment edged 3% lower annually to $5.55 billion.Earlier in the week, Oppenheimer said strong results across enterprise software companies in the most recent quarter point to healthy demand, which should bode well for Oracle's cloud business."Our regression analysis foretells upside in (Oracle cloud infrastructure, or OCI) growth and RPO conversions in (the fiscal first quarter)," the brokerage said in a Tuesday note. "In combination with additional gigawatt capacity coming online, this could support higher (fiscal 2027) guidance while reinforcing the bull case that OCI demand remains supply -- not demand -- constrained."Major technology companies have reported strong annual growth rates for their cloud businesses in the latest earnings season, with Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) cloud revenue surging 82% to $24.77 billion. Microsoft (MSFT) cloud computing platform Azure rallied 43%, while Amazon's (AMZN) Web Services revenue jumped 37%.Oracle expects revenue to grow by 30% to 34% in the second quarter, with cloud sales seen rising 64% and 70%. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to grow between 21% and 25%, reaching $1.85 to $1.91. Markets expect adjusted EPS of $1.89 on consolidated revenue growth of 32% to $21.18 billion.Oracle raised its fiscal 2027 non-GAAP EPS guidance to $8.10 from $8.05. The company expects at least $90 billion in full-year revenue. Analysts expect $8.07 and $89.66 billion, respectively.

$AMZN$GOOG$GOOGL$MSFT$ORCL