New York, Jan 13, 2026, 15:35 EST — Regular session
Shares of KLA Corp rose about 1.3% on Tuesday after TD Cowen upgraded the chip equipment maker to “buy” and sharply raised its price target. The stock was at $1,446.61 after touching an intraday high of $1,489.99.
The move came against a softer tape. The S&P 500 tracker SPY and the Nasdaq 100 tracker QQQ were both down about 0.4%, while semiconductor equipment peers Applied Materials, Lam Research and ASML traded lower.
The upgrade matters because investors are trying to pin down the next leg of wafer fab spending — where the money goes in 2026 can reshape the winners inside chip gear. KLA sits in process control, the inspection and measurement gear that chipmakers lean on as they push to tighter manufacturing tolerances.
TD Cowen analyst Krish Sankar lifted KLA to Buy from Hold and raised his price target to $1,800 from $1,300, pointing to “leading-edge foundry” as the “fastest-growing pocket of spend.” He wrote that Street expectations for about 10% revenue growth in 2027 “embed flat market share,” and said the firm disagreed, modeling share rising to 9.5% in 2027 from 8.3% in 2025. TipRanks
Bank of America also lifted its price target on KLA to $1,650 from $1,450, keeping a Buy rating, as it raised targets across its semiconductor capital equipment coverage on a “stronger multi-year demand outlook,” better visibility and the potential for higher free cash flow in the upturn. TipRanks
Not every shop is leaning in. Susquehanna raised its target to $1,500 from $1,125 but kept a Neutral rating, citing channel checks that suggest the capital equipment industry is gearing for $120 billion in wafer fab equipment spending; it said WFE trends “remain strong.” TipRanks
KLA’s shares closed at $1,428.17 on Monday, up 2.0%, and notched a fresh 52-week high on the session, according to MarketWatch data.
KLA sells inspection and metrology tools used to catch defects and keep yields up — a slice of chipmaking that tends to grow in importance as chip designs get more complex and factories run tighter processes. That makes the stock sensitive to shifts in leading-edge foundry plans and memory spending.
Investors will get the next hard datapoint on Jan. 29, when KLA reports second-quarter fiscal 2026 results after the market close and hosts its earnings call at 2 p.m. PT, the company said.
But the setup cuts both ways. If leading-edge foundry budgets slip, or if the market is too early on a sustained memory rebound, KLA’s order and margin outlook can cool fast — and the stock’s run leaves less room for a cautious guide.
For now, traders are watching whether KLA can hold onto its gains into the close and whether management’s Jan. 29 outlook backs up the foundry-led thesis that’s driving the latest upgrades.
