Trade Alert: Selling when Wall Street buys and vice versa

Sometimes I can’t hardly believe how poetic the buys and sells of being contrarian can be. We bought Nvidia back two years ago when most Wall Street analysts hated the stock.

For the last two years, I’ve repeatedly explained how Nvidia has been uniquely positioned to benefit from AI and Cloud and other Revolutions.

Well today, Wells Fargo raises its Nvidia price target to $315 from $140 in a rare double upgrade. From the article: “In a rare move, the firm raised its rating two notches to outperform from underperform for Nvidia shares, citing the strength of its artificial intelligence and cloud computing markets. It also raised its per-share price target to $315 from $140, representing 20.5 percent upside to Tuesday’s close.

“We are positive on NVIDIA’s competitive positioning for gaming and expanding growth opportunities in data center, HPC, and emerging / expanding AI opportunities (autonomous vehicles, healthcare, robotics, etc.),” analyst Aaron Rakers said in a note to clients Tuesday. “NVIDIA is well positioned to continue to leverage / expand its platform story.””

Cody back now. I trimmed Nvidia back in May when it hit $260 for the first time. I’m more inclined to trim some more than I am to buy more right now. Meanwhile, that Wall Street analyst just upgraded a stock that’s up 700% in the last two years for us.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go ahead and buy my third 1/3rd-sized tranche in WDC today, making it about as big as a position as I want it to be.

Am I missing something about how much growth there will be in flash storage demand in the next five to ten years, and that WDC will benefit and the stock will likely go higher? Maybe. I think over the next 3-5 years, this will have looked like a buying opportunity, but it’s always possible I’m missing something, not the market.

But of course, just for good measure, here’s a Wall Street analyst downgrading WDC that’s already down a bunch, which is what gives us the opportunity to invest in this name even as so much of the markets are wildly expensive. Cowen downgrades WDC for cost structure trailing INTC and MU.

Don’t be coy, which is defined as “making a pretense of shyness or modesty that is intended to be alluring.” But recognize that being contrarian means making moves that the rest of the world thinks is nuts.

Then again, as someone phrased it in yesterday’s chat “Is it Revolutionary or is it Fitbit?” I’ve been wrong before. And I’ll probably cut my losses on WDC if the stock and the fundamentals don’t improve in the next quarter or two. I’m betting that WDC’s next five years are much brighter than the last five years have been, even as the Cowen and other analysts who had buy ratings on it then now have sell ratings on it.