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Investing.com — Here are the biggest analyst moves in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) for this week.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said in a note this week that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) recent share-price pullback has opened up an appealing buying opportunity, pointing to the company’s backlog, AI partnerships and cloud momentum as key pillars of a strong multi-year growth outlook in large-cap technology.

Thill noted that the stock has fallen 18% since the first fiscal quarter (F1Q), despite Microsoft’s disclosure of $250 billion in commitments to OpenAI and $30 billion tied to Anthropic. He adds that the current valuation of “23x CY27 EPS” now sits below Amazon and Google “despite superior visibility.”

The analyst argues that Microsoft’s record contractual commitments are the main reason to step in at current levels. He expects second-quarter remaining performance obligations to deliver “the largest sequential step-up ever,” driven by the OpenAI and Anthropic agreements.

Those deals, Thill said, reinforce “unprecedented multi-year demand visibility.”

Azure remains a key upside driver. Thill describes Azure demand as “supply-constrained, not demand-constrained,” with Microsoft planning to double its data-center footprint over the next two years.

The company has beaten its Azure revenue guidance for three consecutive quarters, and Thill believes execution on new capacity alone “could likely drive upside to both F2Q… and FY26 Azure consensus”

The analyst also highlighted accelerating AI monetization through Copilot and other first-party offerings. With Azure accounting for “30% of overall revenue,” sustained outperformance could lift overall revenue growth into the “high teens,” he said.

While he acknowledges ongoing capacity constraints and elevated capital spending, Thill believes Microsoft is positioned to deliver “meaningful upside to both top and bottom line” through fiscal 2026.

Earlier in the week, Raymond James upgraded Google owner Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to Strong Buy, arguing the company is moving into a phase where its AI stack is “shifting to high gear,” setting the stage for meaningful upward revisions to medium-term estimates.

Analyst Josh Beck said refreshed bottom-up work on Search and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) prompted him to raise 2026 and 2027 forecasts, with his 2027 revenue outlook now above broader Street expectations.

He said Alphabet is likely “entering a cycle of improving AI Stack narrative and upward revisions that could create one of the highest quality top-line AI acceleration stories in the public universe.”

Beck added that for 2026, the AI stack narrative and related estimate revisions should become the dominant performance drivers among mega-cap internet names, rather than a mean-reversion trade.

In Cloud, Beck models GCP revenue growth of 44% in 2026 and 36% in 2027, ahead of consensus. He points to strong contributions from infrastructure and platform services, supported by large-scale deployments of TPUs and GPUs and rising adoption of Gemini API and Vertex AI.

By the end of 2027, he estimates GCP could be generating roughly $25 billion of annualized revenue from TPUs, about $20 billion from GPUs, around $10 billion from Gemini API and roughly $2.5 billion from Vertex AI.

For Search, Beck forecasts revenue growth of 13% in both 2026 and 2027, above Street assumptions, as weakness in core search is offset by scaling adoption of AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini. He expects AI-driven queries to support stronger cost-per-click growth as context and conversion improve.

Brokerage firm Stifel initiated coverage of Micron Technology with an Outperform rating, saying the memory cycle is moving into a multi-year upturn supported by structural AI demand and persistently tight supply conditions.

The firm argues Micron is well positioned to benefit from rising average selling prices (ASPs) and a mix shift toward higher-margin products as memory becomes an increasingly critical constraint in AI systems.

“Access to memory has become a key bottleneck in AI racks/systems, increasing demand for more performant, higher bandwidth memory (HBM) solutions,” Stifel analysts said.

With supply expected to remain constrained into 2027, the broker sees a backdrop that supports sustained pricing strength and margin expansion. Against that backdrop, Stifel expects Micron to capitalize on “significant ASP growth and higher margin products,” forecasting non-GAAP EPS growth of more than 275% over the next two years.

HBM is seen as central to Micron’s growth outlook. Stifel said HBM has moved into sharper focus as AI models grow more complex and require faster access to larger data sets. As next-generation chips integrate more HBM, memory is becoming a larger component of total AI infrastructure spending.

As the number two player, Micron is expected to see HBM revenue rise 164% in fiscal 2026 and a further 40% in fiscal 2027, with DDR and QLC NAND also benefiting from AI-related demand, the firm noted.

At the same time, Stifel flags several risks, including the potential return of Samsung as a more meaningful HBM competitor, heavy capital spending that could shift value toward equipment suppliers, a possible easing in DRAM supply-demand dynamics, and the risk that chipmakers design their own base logic dies.

On valuation, Stifel said Micron trades at about 9.7 times calendar 2026 earnings, modestly below historical averages.

“While valuation increasingly embeds significant growth expectations, we believe shares can continue to work on the back of a multiyear, AI-driven product cycle characterized by tight supply,” the firm wrote.

Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh believes investors should use the recent pullback in Arm Holdings shares to build positions, arguing the market has become too negative on handset demand.

Arm has fallen about 30% since November, even as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has gained roughly 10%. Rakesh said the concerns behind the move are “overdone,” adding that Mizuho would “be buyers of ARM on the ~30% pullback.”

The analyst said that Arm’s growth drivers extend well beyond smartphones. While royalty revenue is roughly 50% tied to mobile, he said it has “always outgrown handset” trends and is expected to grow between 7% and 31% annually from 2021 through 2027.

A key catalyst is the ongoing shift toward Arm’s v9 architecture, which carries “2x ASP/core at v9 vs. v8,” providing a structural uplift to royalties. Rakesh also pointed to rising interest in custom silicon, saying potential ASIC and CPU ramps in 2027 and 2028 could add “$1B+ top-line upside.”

The analyst pointed out opportunities tied to AI-focused custom chips, including a possible training and inference ASIC linked to OpenAI and SoftBank. That project alone, he wrote, “could conservatively drive ~$1B…into C27-28E.”

Beyond mobile, Arm is gaining traction in data centers as hyperscalers increasingly adopt its designs. Rakesh cited platforms such as AWS Graviton, Microsoft Cobalt, Meta’s planned CPU and Nvidia’s Grace and Vera as drivers of a “growing CSS customer base” and an improving royalty mix.

The analyst reiterated an Outperform rating and $190 price target, saying Arm remains “well positioned as the broadest global semiconductor platform.”

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley upgraded the European semiconductor sector to Overweight this week. The Wall Street firm’s strategists believe the space offers an attractive setup for selective stock picking as diversification inflows build, valuation dynamics improve and semiconductor equipment names emerge as key beneficiaries of the next phase of the AI capex cycle.

The strategists said European equities are seeing rising diversification inflows while beginning to break out of a long-standing valuation discount versus the U.S. Within that backdrop, semiconductors stand out as a sector where bottom-up fundamentals are increasingly driving top-down performance.

Morgan Stanley said its preferred way to express this view remains analyst-led stock selection rather than broad factor exposure.

“While European equities already feel highly idiosyncratic, we see plenty more room for Europe’s stock-level dispersion to rise towards cycle highs,” the strategists wrote.

The upgrade is anchored in the semiconductor equipment segment. Morgan Stanley said ASML has been the dominant contributor to European Top Picks performance year to date, accounting for more than half of weighted gains. ASML also represents around 80% of the MSCI Europe Semis and Semicap sector.

Looking ahead, the bank said the key risk in the AI cycle is shifting away from demand and toward execution and transition. “For 2026, the risk in the AI capex cycle is execution & transition, not demand,” the strategists said, arguing this shift favors European semicap exposure, particularly companies linked to extreme ultraviolet lithography.

Morgan Stanley expects order intake in coming quarters to confirm higher foundry and memory capital spending into 2027, alongside better-than-feared demand from China.

From a strategy perspective, the strategists said they adjusted their sector model to reflect stronger earnings and price target revision breadth for European semiconductors, while neutralising factors such as accruals and reducing China exposure. These changes lifted the sector to second place in its internal rankings, just behind banks.

At the stock level, ASML and ASM International remain Morgan Stanley’s Top Picks, while BE Semiconductor Industries is also highlighted as an Overweight-rated beneficiary of the same themes.

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• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Capital’s stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions

• A total of 7 investors have a majority stake in the company with 54% ownership

• Insider ownership in Capital is 16%

We’ve found 21 US stocks that are forecast to pay a dividend yield of over 6% next year. See the full list for free.

If you want to know who really controls Capital Limited (LON:CAPD), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 46% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

Let’s delve deeper into each type of owner of Capital, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Capital

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

Capital already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It’s therefore worth looking at Capital’s earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don’t have many shares in Capital. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Aegis Financial Corporation with 10% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are Jamie Boyton and Fidelity International Ltd, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 10%. Jamie Boyton, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Top Key Executive.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company’s shares are owned by the top 7 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock’s expected performance. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Capital Limited. It has a market capitalization of just UK£267m, and insiders have UK£42m worth of shares in their own names. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling.

With a 38% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Capital. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

It’s always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Capital better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we’ve spotted with Capital .

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.