HP Enterprise jumps on upgrade to “buy” from Morgan Stanley

Shares of HP Enterprise are up nearly 3% as of 10:10 a.m. ET, the second-best-performing stock in the S&P 500, after the server and networking company got a fresh vote of confidence from Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring, who took over coverage of HPE starting with this report, raised the stock to “overweight” (or buy) from “neutral” and hiked the price target to $28 from $22.

He’s optimistic on the company’s short-term results, and has a higher opinion than peers on how much HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks will bolster its networking business and offset any softness in the traditional server segment.

For enterprise hardware companies, “the July quarter setup is most favorable for overweight-rated HPE, as the stock remains the cheapest of the group (at 8.5x times our fiscal year 2026 EPS), AI expectations are low, and management should guide October quarter results decently ahead of consensus, which is yet to incorporate the Juniper Networks acquisition,” Woodring wrote. “As the market comes to better understand nearly half of HPE’s business is networking, inclusive of more AI exposure (Juniper in xAI cluster), HPE’s multiple will re-rate above the current 8x multiple.”

HP Enterprise is slated to release quarterly results on September 3.