Selected Stock Price Target News of the Day — May 18, 2026

Monday’s stock price target news includes a significant upgrade on F5 Networks, a price target increase on MKS Instruments ahead of continued AI semiconductor demand, and a pre-earnings note on Deckers Outdoor ahead of its May 21 quarterly report.

Evercore Upgrades F5 Networks to Outperform, Raises Target 48%

Amit Daryanani at Evercore upgraded F5 Networks (FFIV) from In Line to Outperform and raised his price target from $320 to $475, a 48.44% increase, ahead of the company’s Analyst and Investor Day scheduled for May 28. The upgrade follows F5’s second quarter fiscal 2026 results: revenue of $763 million, up 8% year-over-year, with EPS of $3.92 beating the $3.77 consensus estimate. Daryanani cited five catalysts in the upgrade note, with the AI application delivery market projection at the center. His thesis is that F5 is positioned to capture $400 million to $600 million of a market Evercore estimates will reach $1.5 billion by 2028. The company reported $50 million in AI bookings in the first half of fiscal 2026, an early but concrete data point supporting the AI infrastructure narrative. Daryanani has hit his F5 price targets on 11 of 11 forecasts, with an average time to target of 239 days.

The May 28 Analyst and Investor Day is the near-term catalyst. F5 has not hosted this type of event recently, and management is expected to lay out its longer-term AI ADC strategy in detail. Daryanani’s $475 target implies the market is underpricing F5’s role in enterprise AI infrastructure at a moment when the company is about to present that case directly to institutional investors. The stock was trading near $322 ahead of the upgrade, making the implied upside approximately 47% from that level.

F5 sells application delivery and security technology, anchored by its BIG-IP product line, and has spent recent quarters repositioning around multicloud environments and AI-driven traffic. Daryanani’s call carries weight beyond the F5-specific record: across his career AnaChart has him reaching 90.32% of his price targets, with an average upside of 29.39% over about 367 days. The $50 million in first-half AI bookings is the early, concrete proof point his thesis leans on.

Morgan Stanley Raises MKS Instruments on AI Semiconductor Demand

Joseph Moore at Morgan Stanley maintained his Buy rating on MKS Instruments (MKSI) and raised his price target from $354 to $374, a 5.65% increase. The move follows MKS Instruments’ first quarter 2026 results: revenue of $967 million, up 3.1% sequentially, with EPS of $1.23 beating the $1.09 consensus estimate by 12.75%. Moore’s note pointed to continued AI semiconductor demand as the primary tailwind, with MKS supplying critical components used in chip fabrication equipment. Moore has a 77.52% hit rate across 1,622 forecasts tracked on AnaChart, making him one of the more prolific and consistent analysts covering the semiconductor equipment space.

MKS Instruments supplies the vacuum, gas and pressure control, photonics, and materials subsystems built into semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and also serves electronics and specialty industrial markets, so its demand tracks chip-fab capital spending closely. Moore’s $374 leans on the same AI-driven equipment cycle lifting the rest of the wafer-fab supply chain. His 77.52% met ratio across 1,622 tracked targets, with an average upside of 17.96% reached in about 225 days, ranks him among the more active and reliable names covering the group.

Piper Sandler Raises Deckers Ahead of May 21 Earnings

Anna Andreeva at Piper Sandler maintained her Hold rating on Deckers Outdoor (DECK) and raised her price target from $95 to $100, a 5.26% increase, in a pre-earnings note ahead of the company’s fourth quarter fiscal 2026 report scheduled for May 21. The modest target increase alongside a maintained Hold suggests Andreeva sees limited downside risk heading into the print but does not expect a meaningful upside surprise. Deckers reports three days from Monday’s note. The stock was trading near $93.56, making the $100 target consistent with a roughly 6.9% upside scenario. The HOKA brand’s growth recovery trajectory and guidance for fiscal 2027 are likely to be the primary focus when Deckers reports later in the week. Deckers grew revenue approximately 8% in the prior fiscal year, and management had guided to continued growth in fiscal 2027. Andreeva’s Hold rating at this price point suggests the upside from here is contingent on a combination of in-line results and a reassuring outlook on HOKA’s recovery.

Monday’s stock price target news reflects active model updating across technology and consumer sectors as analysts process recent earnings data and prepare for an upcoming reporting cycle. The F5 Networks raise from Evercore stands out as the day’s most significant move, a high-conviction bet on the company’s role in enterprise AI infrastructure at a moment when the company is about to present its longer-term strategy to institutional investors.

Deckers Outdoor runs HOKA, its fast-growing running brand, alongside UGG and Teva, and HOKA’s trajectory is what analysts track most closely into each print. Andreeva’s Hold and modest raise sit on a different track record than the two technology calls: AnaChart has her reaching 53.80% of her past targets, below the desk leaders, with an average upside of 24.22% over about 294 days. Her caution into the May 21 report reads as wait-and-see rather than high conviction.

Monday’s calls ran through Evercore, Morgan Stanley, and Piper Sandler. AnaChart holds 661,383 price targets and 759,654 ratings from 7,191 analysts, 3,754 active and 3,437 retired, across 9,686 tickers and 424 brokers, going back 18 years with every call kept next to its original source. The full analyst price target dataset carries the source data behind every met ratio above.