Stock Market Update
March 27, 2025
UPGRADES
2. CrowdStrike was upgraded to a buy at BTIG with a price target of $431.
Street estimates are too low, analysts said. The firm noted that with the July outage now eight months in the past, CrowdStrike “has much better visibility on forecasts.” The analysts believe that annual recurring revenue will accelerate in the second half of the year above street forecast. Jim said this was a “fantastic upgrade.” If the stock price hits the $400 level, Jim said we’d probably sell some of the shares we purchased when prices fell earlier this month. The stock is currently trading in the high $380s.
​
3. Honeywell announced the leadership for its Advanced Materials business to be named Solstice Advanced Materials. The company’s spin is on track for late this year or early 2026 with David Swell as the new CEO. Sewell most recently served as CEO of WestRock and prior to that was president at Sherwin Williams.
Jim said the selection was a “good pick,” by Honeywell. However, the company is now in what Jim call’s spin purgatory as there is always initial excitement around a company when breakups are announced, but people often wait to buy back in closer to the spin’s completion date, something we also saw with DuPont.
DOWNGRADES
​
NEWS
Between tariffs, sticky inflation and uncertainty around the future of U.S. monetary and fiscal policy, people are getting more and more worried about what is next for the stock market.
​
An online survey conducted by Allianz Life Insurance found that 51% of respondents “worry that another big market crash is on the horizon.” That is up from 46% at the end of the fourth quarter.
The survey also found that only 26% of respondents are comfortable with current market conditions, down from 31% at the end of 2024.
The latest downdraft comes as President Donald Trump moves forward with a slew of tariffs on imported goods. Late Wednesday, he announced a 25% levy on “all cars that are not made in the United States,” set to take effect next week. He has also unveiled duties targeting products from key trading partners such as China, Canada and Mexico.
​
There are other indications of souring sentiment on the market and the economy.
AMD could be in trouble, according to Jefferies.
The firm downgraded the chipmaker to hold from buy. Its new price target of $120, down from $135, implies shares adding just 8.9% from Wednesday’s close.
​
Analyst Blayne Curtis cited intensifying competition from Intel and results from a Jefferies benchmarking study that indicate AMD’s graphics processing units significantly underperformed Nvidia’s throughout various open-source models.
​
Intel’s incoming CEO will likely make the company more flexible on strategy that will result in the company producing “fairly competitive chips” starting next year, according to Curtis, making the company more competitive versus AMD.
​
“When we assumed coverage of AMD back in May 2024, we saw continued share gains in PC/Server but had some concerns on the AI ramp and wanted to see more progress to justify a continued positive stance. Fast forward to today, we are still not seeing much traction in AI to support the $10-15B of AI revenue the street is baking in for 2026/2027 and see Intel’s new management as a catalyst for them to become more competitive, particularly in Client PC,” Curtis wrote.
​