News and analysis

Merck (MRK) shares have been in a downtrend since June 25, 2024, falling by 40% to reach $79. Over the past two months, the stock has entered a consolidation phase within the $75–80 range, stabilizing just above a key long-term support level. Notably, prices have not dropped below this support since 2018, which strengthens the technical case for a potential upside reversal and a breakout through the downtrend resistance.

With this setup in mind, I’m planning to open a long position in the $78–81 range, targeting a move to $95–100, where a price gap remains unfilled. To manage risk, a stop-loss order could be placed at $62.

More and more investment houses and small individual traders are coming to the conclusion that the AI segment in its most liquid part will confidently play the role of a life preserver in the sea of Middle Eastern political and military tensions.

After all, it is AI features, including language models and images’ processing based on collecting consumer data to identify their preferences that are able to currently provide adequate marketing and advertising solutions to maintain the proper level of product sales even if a global or local crisis is looming. Again, in a very optimistic scenario of gradual return to normal growth in developed economies, AI will provide powerful advantages via saving costs and increasing revenue.

Over the weekend, Citygroup offered another bright example and a graphic proof of how it may work when AI trade outweighs Middle East concerns. Citi analysts just noted they remain very “constructive” on equities, with renewed focus on “confidence in the AI trade”. This reputable bank is keeping its encouraging “+1 Overweight” rating for equities, particularly favouring U.S. stocks, as “we see a continued return of the AI trade,” said Dirk Willer, Citi’s global head of Macro and Asset Allocation, when presenting the June report. Citigroup analysts clearly tried to downplay the market side of recent geopolitical developments, saying that the impact of Israeli-Iran conflict, even in case of further oil spikes, is expected to be “relatively short lived.”, so that the bank “would be ready to increase” its equity exposure “further”. The release raised the year-end S&P 500 target to 6,300, with a bull case scenario of 7,000, citing “receding tariff concerns”.

Meanwhile, Barclays banking group chose to raise its mid-term price target on Nvidia shares to $200 from $170, pointing to solid supply chain demand and potential upside options in the second half of 2025. The bank have made its “post-earnings checks” to project another "$2 billion in upside in July for Nvidia vs. Street numbers". Barclays’ new target price for Nvidia means a 40% of extra gain from the current levels.

Nvidia is the undisputed leader of the AI era, and its latest line up of Blackwell chips is showing much faster results, so it is booked for at least a couple of years ahead. Nvidia's Blackwell reportedly trained Meta’s very big and complex Llama 3.1 model in just 27 minutes, and this is how new Blackwell chips are changing the idea of quickness for AI systems. Mass production of Blackwell Ultra is scheduled for the third quarter. This system would contribute 25% of Nvidia’s growing revenue in July and rise to nearly 50% by October, according to Barclays, when “both Ultra and [overall] higher volume should help gross margins”.

As to our Metadoro team, we has long been pointing to targets in the vicinity or above $200 for Nvidia, and we're excited to see more analysts daring to call this number.

Dash (DSH) is adding 4.4% to $18.58 on Monday, outperforming the broader crypto market, where Bitcoin (BTC) is rising by 2.3% to $101,478. However, this gain reflects a partial recovery after a weekend drop triggered by escalating geopolitical tensions. The U.S. conducted airstrikes on Iran's nuclear development sites, prompting fears that Iran might retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz — a critical route for over 20% of global oil shipments. Dash dropped by 10.8% to $17.33, marking a new all-time low on those concerns.

Markets now appear to be discounting the worst-case scenario of a full blockade, allowing both stock indices and cryptocurrencies to recover. Dash must capitalise on this improving sentiment and push back above the $20.00 mark to avoid renewed downside risk, which could otherwise take it as low as $10.00.

It happened so that you and I somehow lost sight of Micron Technologies shares, which entered a kind of oblivion area for a month or two after the company's non-inspiring earnings release at the end of March. At that time, Wall Street was not satisfied with Micron's own projections for the rest of the year as well, which added an extra negative impulse to the previous stagnation at double-digit discount levels. As a result, the value of Micron dipped even below $75 per share. But later on, a general recovery trend of the AI-based asset pool gradually brought Micron shares to the surface, and the latest news surrounding the company helped much to heat a persistently bullish sentiment.

Micron Technology's next quarterly report is coming out next Wednesday, June 25. In the meantime, for almost a week now, Micron has been providing a super newsworthy precedent for everybody in the market to believe that Micron is yet another tech company that will perform strong this year. Micron together with Donald Trump's administration surprisingly announced expanded US investments into leading-edge DRAM manufacturing. For those living under a rock, DRAM is dynamic random access memory, a type of random-access semiconductor structure to store each bit of data in a memory cell. In short, all this is again about increasing demand for modern chips, but this time taking into account government needs and support.

An initiative leads Micron’s chip ambitions further beyond its previously supposed plans by $30 billion, which is going to include building of an additional memory fabrication facility in the US state of Idaho, and a modernization of its existing plant in Virginia. The company also promised to provide advanced packaging capabilities for HBM (high bandwidth memory) to the U.S., targeting faster growth in the AI segment. The expanded network of factories includes six high-volume fabs across Idaho and New York, while Micron now wants to produce 40% of its all DRAM volumes in the US. Construction on Micron’s first fab in Idaho is already underway, with production slated to start in 2027. All in all, the total investment would be around $200 billion, according to Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra who said this "will reinforce America’s technological leadership, create tens of thousands of American jobs across the semiconductor ecosystem and secure a domestic supply of semiconductors—critical to economic and national security”. Everything that the current White House team likes, which should free Micron from tariff problems and maybe even add tax breaks.

Industry colleagues and partners are also delighted, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang who already noted that “Micron’s investment in advanced memory manufacturing and HBM capabilities in the US, with support from Trump Administration, is an important step forward for the AI ecosystem,” as well as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who said that “strengthening semiconductor manufacturing in the US will drive new innovation, create high-skilled jobs, and further American competitiveness." Are there any other components needed for another wave of a big hit? If only boring sales and profit numbers in June 25's earnings report don't disappoint the investing crowd, and it seems that everything will work out exactly along that positive way, then Micron's further rally is in the bag. Again, from a purely technical viewpoint, when looking at daily and weekly charts, the stock is clearly not ready to stop right there. Those stranger tides around $120 per share may provide only a temporary haven to pause and rethink on the way before proceeding to higher goals. Pre-market trading today is already at $123. I assume that a quick repeat of $150+ tops is not far off, and maybe even by the beginning of autumn. The intermediate berth around $120 will quickly remain behind the stern.