Hello,

Thanks for signing up for MarketBeat Daily Ratings—we’re excited to have you on board.

Every weekday, you’ll get a curated summary of new “Buy” and “Sell” ratings from Wall Street’s top-rated analysts, the latest stock news, and bonus investing content—all delivered straight to your inbox.

You’re just two quick steps away from completing your sign-up:

1. Make sure our emails go to your inbox

Gmail users:
Mobile: Tap the three dots (…) in the top right and select Move to Inbox or Move to Primary
Desktop: Click the folder icon at the top and select Move to Inbox or Primary

Apple Mail users:
Tap our email address at the top (next to From: on mobile), then select Add to VIP

Other providers:
Reply to this message and add [email protected] to your contacts

2. Confirm your subscription

Click this link to confirm your subscription. This verifies your account and ensures you receive your newsletters without interruption instead of getting stuck in your spam filter.

Confirm your subscription here.

After you confirm, feel free to download our popular free report, "7 Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever" with this link.

Thanks again for subscribing—we look forward to being part of your investing journey.

Matthew Paulson
Founder and CEO, MarketBeat.

P.S. If you didn’t mean to subscribe, no problem—you can unsubscribe here.

Applied Materials Stock Looks Pricey—Can AI Demand Justify the Rally?

Authored by Sam Quirke. Article Published: 6/21/2026.

This week’s news that Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) has crossed the price-to-sales valuation it held at the peak of the dot-com bubble in April 2000 might have been enough to make even the most committed bulls reach for the Pepto.

That’s because headlines comparing a stock’s valuation with its dot-com bubble level usually serve as a flashing red light for investors. When you consider just how far the semiconductor equipment maker has run, it’s somewhat understandable.

ALERT: Drop these 5 stocks before the market opens tomorrow! (Ad)

The Wall Street Journal is already raising the alarm about a potential market crash, and Weiss Ratings research points to the first half of 2026 as a particularly rough stretch for certain holdings.

Some of America's most popular stocks could take serious damage as a radical market shift plays out. Analysts at Weiss Ratings have identified five names you may want to remove from your portfolio before this unfolds.

If any of these are in your portfolio, now is the time to review your positions.

See the 5 stocks to avoid

Applied Materials’ shares hit yet another fresh all-time high this week as the multi-month rally continued to gain momentum. All told, the stock is up more than 140% year to date and a staggering 50% in the past month alone.

That kind of move is the sort that makes new highs, breaks technical models and, eventually, attracts headlines like this one. The question for investors is whether that historical comparison is the warning sign it sounds like, or whether the current environment is different enough that the multiple is actually justified. Let’s jump into it.

Why the Rally Is Anything But Irrational

The starting point worth holding onto is that this isn’t a 1999-style story of a company being bought purely on hope and hype. Applied Materials is genuinely benefiting from one of the most powerful structural tailwinds the semiconductor industry has ever seen. The team at Citi made that exact point earlier this week, raising its price target on the stock as it cited a “structural increase” in NAND demand driven by the explosion of agentic AI workloads.

The argument is technical, but it becomes fairly intuitive when you boil it down. As AI workloads become more complex and demanding, they require a much larger memory pool than the fastest and most expensive memory types can practically provide. That’s pushing the industry toward cheaper, higher-capacity alternatives, and Applied Materials sits at the heart of the equipment supply chain that makes those alternatives possible.

Coupled with ongoing innovation across the broader memory landscape, Citi sees this shift as a structural tailwind that should continue to drive the company’s earnings growth well into 2028. That’s not a near-term sugar high. It’s a multi-year trend that bulls believe could keep revenue growing at rates most other tech stocks would envy.

Analysts Are Unanimous in Their Outlook

In fact, Applied Materials’ Moderate Buy consensus rating and the latest round of higher analyst price targets are another reason to avoid leaning too heavily on the dot-com comparison.

Citi’s $710 target, up from $550, still implies upside from recent highs, and the firm is far from alone.

Barclays, UBS Group and Cantor Fitzgerald are among the firms that have recently reiterated or raised bullish views on Applied Materials.

When well-regarded analysts continue to raise their targets, even after a stock has already gained 140% this year, it says something about their confidence in its growth trajectory.

The Risks Are Real Too

For all that, however, there’s no escaping the sheer one-directional nature of the chart in recent months, or this week’s dot-com headline. Applied Materials’ relative strength index is also pushing into overbought territory, which can often set the stage for a sharp reset whenever sentiment starts to turn.

There are also genuine fundamental concerns that shouldn’t be ignored. Almost 30% of the company’s revenue comes from China, which leaves Applied Materials more exposed than most to any sudden trade-policy disruption or further restrictions on equipment exports.

How to Build a Position Carefully

For investors looking to get involved, there’s plenty to consider. The bull case is genuine, the structural demand picture is compelling and the analyst community is firmly in the camp of higher prices ahead. But the chart is also stretched, the valuation is at historically extreme levels, and one-directional rallies tend to meet their reckoning eventually.

For investors looking to chase this entry, that probably means resisting the urge to go all-in on a single position and instead building it up in stages. A starter position now, with the discipline to add on the pullbacks that almost certainly lie ahead, is likely a smarter way to play this than trying to time the absolute top. The dot-com comparison may make for an uncomfortable headline, but the difference between 2000 and 2026 is that this time, the demand is genuinely there. The trick is to make sure you don’t pay too much for it.