Why Nebius Stock Surged Higher Today
Key Points
One analyst thinks Nebius Group stock will soar to $399 per share.
That's another 76% gain even after nearly tripling already this year.
Compute leasing price increases show sustained demand.
Often, a stock analyst may rush to update coverage and raise a price target after the stock sails past the prior target. That wasn't the case with a call on Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) stock, though.
A monster share price target increase came from BNP Paribas analyst Stefan Slowinski even before the stock reached the prior target. That sent Nebius shares soaring today, up 9.5% as of 1:53 p.m. ET.
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Slowinski and his firm upgraded Nebius to the equivalent of a buy rating from a neutral one. The price target was raised from $260, which is still above the recent stock price, to $399 per share. That represents 76% upside from Nebius' closing price yesterday, even as the stock has already nearly tripled in 2026.
The optimism comes from more than Nebius' strong backlog for its artificial intelligence (AI) cloud infrastructure. That growing backlog has led to soaring revenue, but there's an additional catalyst now, too.
Last week, Nebius confirmed that demand from firms needing its compute capacity for training and running AI models is growing as it raised prices for the second time in recent months. Beginning Oct. 1, customers using some of its Nvidia processing chips will pay about a 20% higher leasing rate.
Costs for other processing units and memory products will rise even more. That's proof of strong and sustained demand in the sector, and helped one analyst highlight that strength to investors today.
Howard Smith has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.