Barclays cuts Dell, HPE, NetApp ratings; Dell falls 11% on enterprise AI timing fears
Barclays analyst Tim Long downgraded Dell Technologies to Neutral from Overweight and cut his target price to $574 from $603, also lowering ratings on Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp over concerns that enterprise AI adoption is lagging. Dell shares fell 11.4% on Wednesday to close at $507.43, their biggest one-day drop since April 3, 2025, while HPE and NetApp slid 8.28% and 7.03% respectively. Long attributed much of Dell's more than 300% year-to-date gain to price increases that offset higher memory costs rather than a broad enterprise AI demand surge; he still expects Dell's AI server revenue to roughly triple to about $75 billion this fiscal year but warned the valuation is stretched and upside surprises may narrow.
It shows investors starting to question the real timing of enterprise AI hardware demand, not just betting on AI server shipment growth.