BofA Merrill Lynch analyst Tal Liani noted that he had expected and incorporated some share gains for Crowdstrike (CRWD) from Symantec (SYMC) in his model, but following the recent announcement that Broadcom (AVGO) intends to buy Symantec's enterprise business he sees the potential for those share gains to accelerate. Liani, who raised his price target on Crowdstrike shares to $103 from $89, reiterated a Buy rating on the stock. Aside from the potential for Crowdstrike in antivirus, Liani sees other areas of cyber security where Symantec leads and he could see shares losses should Broadcom's deal create any uncertainty around Symantec's roadmap or commitment to R&D in the space. In email security the beneficiaries would be Proofpoint (PFPT) and Mimecast (MIME) and in secure web gateways the beneficiary could be Zscaler (ZS), Liani noted.

KeyBanc analyst Eric Heath lowered the firm's price target on Crowdstrike to $376 from $430 on lower peer multiples, while keeping an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm says that at some point, the case for optimism needs to be backed up by some optimistic data, and its 1Q24 VAR Survey did not deliver it. IT budgets are still in hiding at this point, with just 50% of KeyBanc's respondents meeting or exceeding their goal in the Q1, the lowest quarterly reading since the heart of the pandemic, and sentiment from the follow-up calls with some individuals also has down ticked. The firm's Q4 2023 VAR survey was iffy, the outlook in 2024 from its CIO survey in January was also not great, its SMB survey was worse than expected, and now 2024 is off to a difficult start - "let's just call a trend a trend," KeyBanc adds.

Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley raised the firm's price target on Broadcom (AVGO) to $1,500 from $1,405 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares after hosting management for meetings. Broadcom is one of the unique companies that has a comprehensive view of the semis industry while also capable of providing an "intimate look" at the artificial intelligence market via custom silicon, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says management highlighted the company's inroads with the consumer-facing AI world, providing a differing viewpoint versus Nvidia's (NVDA) vision of the world - pointing to a two-part market of consumer and enterprise that could grow to a 50/50 split over time. Barclays came away from the meetings "with a valuable second opinion on the future of AI and a greater appreciation for the company's many ways to win."

Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley raised the firm's price target on Broadcom to $1,500 from $1,405 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. The analyst increased the price after hosting management for meetings.