Morgan Stanley said HP Enterprise presents an “attractive near-term value proposition” through the upcoming acquisition. Ahead of HP’s earnings report after the bell on Thursday, analyst Meta Marshall upgraded the stock to “overweight” from “equal.” Marshall also raised its price target to $28 from $23, indicating 28.6% upside potential from Wednesday’s closing price. Earlier this year, HP announced it would acquire networking and cloud solutions company Juniper Networks in a deal valued at approximately $14 billion. Marshall said the deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year or early 2025, could help propel HP’s stock price higher than its hardware and networking peers. “Coupled with the fact that Juniper Networks has completed inventory digestion and has new cloud customers, we prefer to believe that Juniper Networks’ data has more upside in the short term than after the combination,” Marshall said. of downside (especially given outdated Wall Street forecasts). The analyst added: “Checks/competitors point to little near-term downside to HPE’s core numbers (other than the need to reflect convertible/JNPR debt) EPS guidance), we feel comfortable going into HPE. HPE’s year-to-date stock price is up 28.2% in 2024. Analyst sentiment on the stock is mixed. Eight of 18 analysts covering HPE rate it a buy or strong buy, according to LSEG. However, the remaining 10 companies have a Hold rating.