New York, Jan 13, 2026, 12:10 EST — Regular session
- Lam Research shares slip 0.1% as BofA raises target to $245 from $195
- Bernstein and Susquehanna also lift targets, pointing to improving demand signals
- Focus turns to Lam’s late-January results for 2026 order and margin cues
Lam Research (LRCX) shares were little changed on Tuesday after Bank of America raised its price target on the chipmaking equipment supplier to $245 from $195 and kept a Buy rating. The stock was down 0.1% at $220.26 in midday trading. BofA cited a stronger multi-year demand outlook and improving visibility as it lifted targets across its semiconductor equipment coverage.
Why it matters now: Lam is trading near recent highs, and investors are reworking their assumptions for chip-factory spending in 2026. For this group, sentiment can flip fast — orders come from a relatively small number of big chipmakers, and capex plans change with little warning.
The timing also matters. Lam’s next quarterly update is due later this month, and guidance tends to do the real damage (or the real lifting) for the stock and its close peers because it speaks to tool demand before finished chips show up in revenue elsewhere in the chain.
Bernstein, in a note carried by TheFly on Monday, raised its price target on Lam to $225 from $175 and reiterated an Outperform rating. The firm said recent industry commentary looked supportive and that “a NAND upgrade cycle may be starting” — NAND is a type of flash memory used in solid-state drives and phones. TipRanks
Susquehanna’s Mehdi Hosseini also lifted his target to $250 from $200 and kept a Positive rating, according to TheFly. He pointed to recent channel checks that suggest the chip equipment industry is “preparing for $120B wafer fab equipment spending” — wafer-fab equipment is the toolset used to make chips on silicon wafers. TipRanks
On Tuesday, Rothschild & Co Redburn raised its Lam price target to $225 from $150 and maintained a Buy rating, MT Newswires reported via MarketScreener.
The broader chip-tool group was mixed but steady. Applied Materials rose 0.6%, KLA climbed about 2.2%, and U.S.-listed shares of ASML were up 0.6% in midday trading.
Lam closed at $220.40 on Monday after touching $222.58 intraday, according to Investing.com’s historical pricing table. The S&P 500 was slightly lower while the Nasdaq was modestly higher, the same source showed — a backdrop that kept the day’s Lam move from standing out on index flow alone.
Investors will be watching whether the next results reinforce the idea embedded in the new targets: improving visibility, a firmer spending outlook and a clearer path to cash generation in an upturn. For Lam, the tells usually sit in memory and foundry tool demand, customer delivery timing, and the company’s own margin and operating-expense posture.
But there is a catch. Semiconductor equipment is cyclical by design. If customers push out factory builds, if a hoped-for memory refresh fades, or if trade limits bite harder than expected, tool orders can slow quickly — and the targets that look reasonable on the way up can start to look optimistic.
The next hard catalyst is Lam’s quarterly financial conference call and webcast on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific (5:00 p.m. Eastern), the company said.
