AI servers. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) news that moved the stock

What happened

After the close on Tuesday, AI-server maker Super Micro Computer issued a surprise preliminary business update for its fiscal first quarter ended September 30: it now expects revenue of $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion, up sharply from its prior forecast of $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion — at the midpoint, roughly 27% above the old guide and nearly quadruple a year ago. It also raised its estimated gross-profit margin to 12% to 12.5%, from the prior 10.4% to 10.8% range. Shares surged about 13% in late trading after closing at $32.47, and the optimism spilled over: Dell Technologies rose 5-6% after hours and Hewlett Packard Enterprise 4-5%, with Nvidia, AMD, Micron and Marvell up roughly 2% each.

What happened

Dell shares fell 8.4% to $465.14 on Thursday, the worst performance in the S&P 500 for the session, extending Wednesday's roughly 11% plunge for a two-day decline of about 19%. Dell tumbled more than 8% in afternoon trading, falling below its 50-day moving average in heavy volume and triggering a sell signal; shares had reached a profit zone from a 469.47 buy point but round-tripped that gain. Even after the two-day selloff, Dell remained up about 270% in 2026, down from a roughly 355% gain through Tuesday's close, and still on pace for its best year on record.

What happened

Dell shares plunged nearly 11% on Wednesday to about $512.65, on pace for the stock's largest single-day percentage decline since April 3, 2025, when it fell 19%, per Dow Jones Market Data. The selloff followed Barclays' downgrade of Dell, HPE, and NetApp to Equal Weight (Dell price target cut to $574 from $603) on the view that there is no 'meaningful AI inflection yet' in enterprise spending and that revenue strength reflects memory-cost pass-through. Dell undercut its 10-week moving average as the decline accelerated into midday alongside a broad market drop after the hot September CPI report.

What happened

Daiwa Securities Group upgraded Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a 'neutral' rating to 'outperform' in a research report issued Friday, Oct. 2, with a $75.00 price target implying about 16% upside from the stock's previous close, per Briefing.com via MarketBeat. The upgrade follows a wave of bullish Street revisions this week after HPE's $1.2B Vultr order for AMD Helios AI racks.

What happened

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced at its networking investor day on Wednesday that cloud firm Vultr placed a $1.2 billion order for AMD Helios AI racks to deploy in Vultr's U.S. data centers — HPE's first order for the new AMD Helios system. Each rack holds 72 AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs alongside AMD EPYC 'Venice' CPUs and Pensando Vulcano network cards, connected by six HPE Juniper Networking QFX5252 switch trays for rack-scale Ethernet. Separately, HPE raised its long-term networking revenue outlook to a high-teens CAGR for fiscal 2026-2029 (from 5-7% for FY25-28), lifted its fiscal 2027 networking growth forecast to high-teens/low-20s (from 14-17%), and raised its Juniper acquisition cost-savings target to $800M annual run-rate by end of FY28 (from $600M). HPE shares rose nearly 6% in premarket trading.