New York, April 15, 2026, 10:22 EDT
Broadcom shares jumped 3.9% to $395.52 Wednesday morning, after Meta Platforms deepened its partnership with the chipmaker. Marvell Technology also gained, up 1.5% at $135.87, buoyed by a fresh bullish call from Oppenheimer. The two names remained firmly in focus for traders chasing AI hardware momentum.
Timing’s in focus. Investors are piling back into suppliers of chips and networking gear for generative AI, right as first-quarter earnings start to edge geopolitics out of the spotlight. The S&P 500 opened a touch higher, hovering near recent peaks. A bounce—driven by softer inflation data and bets that Middle East tensions won’t lift oil above $100 for long—helped buoy sentiment.
Broadcom has landed another big deal, underscoring the industry’s ongoing pivot toward custom silicon—chips specifically designed for a client’s AI demands—as tech giants like Meta, Google, and Amazon hunt for options beyond Nvidia’s all-purpose processors. According to Reuters, Meta has extended its partnership with Broadcom out to 2029. The initial rollout, both companies said, will top 1 gigawatt of compute.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted the new partnership as a move toward “greater performance and efficiency” for AI tools spanning WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads. Over at Broadcom, CEO Hock Tan called the launch of the MTIA—Meta’s Training and Inference Accelerator chip—“just the beginning” of what he described as a multi-generation roadmap. Facebook
Marvell isn’t playing the same hand. Last week, Barclays told investors to put less weight on the company’s custom-chip hype and pay more attention to its optical networking arm—those are the systems that shuttle data as light within AI data centers. Shares surged to all-time highs earlier this week after that call.
After a meeting with management, Oppenheimer’s Rick Schafer bumped his Marvell price target up to $170 from $150 while sticking with an outperform rating. He called the outlook “unequivocally bullish,” highlighting stronger momentum for data-center networking and ASICs—custom chips designed for a single client. TipRanks
Marvell’s numbers are fueling the excitement. Back in March, the company reported fiscal 2026 revenue jumped 42% to a record $8.195 billion. CEO Matt Murphy pointed to record-breaking growth in data-center bookings, saying that momentum hasn’t slowed. Looking ahead, Marvell has told investors it sees revenue growth picking up speed through fiscal 2027.
Analyst notes have spanned a wide field lately, with Monday’s Wall Street coverage touching everything from Adobe and Best Buy to CoreWeave, Nike, Starbucks, and T-Mobile. Among the headline moves: Goldman Sachs flipped positive on Netflix just before its earnings, Bank of America shifted Carvana down to neutral, and Barclays bumped Marvell higher on optimism over opticals.
Rivals are making moves. Broadcom just inked a custom-chip deal with Google that runs through 2031, while last month Nvidia put $2 billion into Marvell to secure its spot in custom AI tech. The flood of spending can boost a cluster of suppliers at once—though it’s just as capable of shifting market share in a hurry.
Still, the trade’s packed. Marvell’s soared roughly 151% in the last year; Broadcom, up 118%, Barron’s reports. That’s a lot of optimism priced into the sector already.
Oil hovered in the mid-$90s as Strait of Hormuz bottlenecks continued. A hiccup in cloud build-outs—the key driver for both companies—could quickly make valuations look stretched. Still, Broadcom and Marvell shares managed gains by mid-morning Wednesday.
