Riot Platforms (RIOT) picked up back-to-back upgrades from Wall Street connected Friday, with JPMorgan and Citigroup some raising their outlooks connected the bitcoin miner amid changing manufacture economics and a displacement toward high-performance computing.
JPMorgan boosted Riot to overweight from neutral and raised its terms people to $19 from $15, calling it the astir charismatic among its mining peers. Citi upgraded to bargain from neutral and lifted its terms people to $24 from $13.75. Both firms pointed to Riot’s pivot into artificial quality and unreality services arsenic a imaginable maturation operator arsenic mining profits tighten. Riot was modestly outperforming a sharply little assemblage connected Friday, declining "just" 1.2% to $16.55.
Alongside its upgrade of RIOT, JPMorgan downgraded the antecedently precise hot-handed IREN to underweight from neutral. Shares are down 9.7% connected Friday, but inactive higher by 300% year-to-date. CleanSpark (CLSK) was chopped to neutral and it's little by 9.3% Friday and higher by 34% year-to-date.
The slope maintained its bargain standing connected Cipher Mining (CIFR), and doubled its terms people to $12 from $6. The shares were 3.5% little to $11.20 astatine work time.
MARA Holdings (MARA) was kept astatine overweight, with a reduced terms nonsubjective of $20, down from $22. The banal was 1% little astir $15.90 successful aboriginal trading.
JPMorgan’s analysts are assigning a 50% probability that Riot, Cipher, and IREN each unafraid near-term precocious show computing (HPC) colocation agreements, utilizing Core Scientific’s (CORZ) 800 MW CoreWeave (CRWV) woody arsenic a benchmark. The slope values HPC colocation contracts astatine $3.7 cardinal to $8.6 cardinal per gross megawatt (MW).
Read more: Bitcoin Mining Profitability Fell successful August, Jefferies Says