Coherent Inc short case played out, Barclays upgrades to Neutral

Coherent Inc (NYSE:) was lifted to Equal-Weight from Underweight at Barclays Wednesday, with analysts lifting the firm’s price target on the stock to $45 from $29 per share.

They told investors in a research note on semiconductor stocks that their firm’s initial short case has largely played out.

“AI levered stocks have risen sharply with COHR seeing the single best performance in the group over the past month (up 30% vs. 6%) despite little change in the fundamentals,” the analysts wrote.

“In all, the high-speed DC business for COHR is about $150M per quarter today and we can see that doubling in the next year,” they added.

However, Barclays sees “continued declines in the legacy business (double-digit declines last 2 quarters), and further Comm. correction.”