NEW YORK, May 27, 2026, 19:02 EDT
Dell Technologies was trading close to $305 late Wednesday, pulling back from an early high of $327.75. Investors are watching for Thursday’s earnings to see if AI server demand can keep up this year’s big rally in hardware stocks. Dell jumped 17% on Friday and added 3.4% Tuesday after Lenovo’s results raised hopes for a rebound in PC and AI-infrastructure sales.
Dell is in focus with its coming report, as the company is tied to the ramp-up in AI. While Dell sells PCs, the bigger story is about its AI-ready servers, which have high-powered chips for running and training AI models. Dell will post first-quarter results for fiscal 2027 after the close on May 28, holding its conference call at 3:30 p.m. CDT.
Lenovo set the initial tone for earnings. The Chinese PC maker posted fourth-quarter revenue of $21.6 billion, a 27% gain. AI-related revenue jumped 84%, now making up 38% of the total. Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang labeled it Lenovo’s “best year ever” and said its infrastructure business hit “hyper-growth” with AI. Lenovo StoryHub
HP posted another signal after the bell on Wednesday. The company reported a 9% increase in fiscal Q2 revenue to $14.4 billion and said non-GAAP EPS was 86 cents. The Personal Systems unit, its core PC business, saw revenue climb 13%. HP mentioned higher commodity costs as well.
Dell is holding its own bar higher. Back in February, the company set its first-quarter revenue target at $34.7 billion to $35.7 billion and put non-GAAP EPS at $2.90 midpoint. Dell also forecast yearly AI-optimized server revenue of about $50 billion, a jump of 103%, after tallying over $64 billion in AI server orders during fiscal 2026 and starting fiscal 2027 with $43 billion in backlog.
Analysts are pegging Dell’s numbers just over its own outlook. Visible Alpha figures, per Investopedia, show fiscal Q1 revenue landing at $36.18 billion and adjusted EPS of $2.97. Option pricing implied traders were bracing for as much as a 10% move in the stock by week’s end.
Wall Street wasted no time. Evercore’s Amit Daryanani was “constructive on the setup,” pointing to “continued momentum” in AI infrastructure. Wells Fargo’s Aaron Rakers said Dell shares will need “continued AI-driven upside” and estimate bumps to keep climbing. TradingView
But the conversation isn’t just about demand now. Morgan Stanley’s Erik Woodring lifted his price target but stuck with Underweight, saying strength in the first half might lead to weaker demand later. He also pointed to “structural margin headwinds” that could make the stock’s current price hard to justify. George Atuan, CFA, on Seeking Alpha, also listed AI server margin concerns and rising component costs as main risks. TradingView
Dell’s order book is back in focus after IREN said it will buy $1.6 billion in Nvidia Blackwell systems through Dell for a cloud AI project. IREN co-CEO Daniel Roberts said, “time-to-compute is everything” right now. Bulls say it’s not about just quarterly sales. Moneycontrol
Dell is feeling both shelter and push from its peers. Lenovo put up a 24.4% PC share last quarter, saying its PC shipments beat the market, and HP’s numbers showed corporate device buying isn’t fading. But Dell still faces the test: server growth, but not with squeezed margins.
Nvidia is still seen as the main benchmark. The chipmaker posted first-quarter revenue of $81.6 billion on May 20, up 85% from last year. That keeps investors thinking AI data-center spend is climbing. But for server names like Dell and Super Micro, the key issue is if that demand adds lasting profit, not just big shipments.
Dell’s results on Thursday are expected to be more about whether it can turn AI demand into profit, not just that the demand is there. If the company beats estimates but doesn’t guide higher, or if server sales look strong but margins disappoint, the stock could look stretched. Dell has already run past a lot of analyst targets.
