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BofA raises DELL stock target a second time in 21 days

By Peace Longe TheStreet

Updated May 18, 2026 9:27 PM

Dell Technologies has been one of the loudest stories in AI infrastructure this year. The numbers behind the rally are real, but so is the debate about how much upside is left.

That tension is exactly why Bank of America's latest move stands out.

The firm just raised its price target on Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) for the second time in roughly three weeks, lifting it to $280 from $246 on Monday, May 18, while keeping its buy rating, according to a MarketScreener report.

The previous BofA upgrade landed on April 27, when the same team raised the target from $205 to $246, TipRanks reports.

Two upgrades in 21 days, on the same stock, by the same analyst, with one of Wall Street's most-watched earnings reports just 10 days away. That sequence sends a specific signal, and the details matter.

What BofA is actually saying about Dell at $280

BofA's new $280 target implies roughly 16.65% upside from Dell's $240.04 opening price on May 18, according to MarketBeat.

Lead analyst Wamsi Mohan has been steadily walking the target higher as Dell's AI server economics improve. His April 27 note flagged agentic AI as a structural demand driver and called BofA's own models "likely conservative," CoinCentral reported.

Agentic AI, in plain terms, turns a single AI request into a chain of sequential steps. Each step requires its own inference event, which multiplies the compute demand per task and forces enterprises to buy more servers.

That is the heart of the thesis. Traditional AI inferencing is a single event; agentic AI workflows are not.

Dell holds roughly 12% of the AI server market and 11% share in infrastructure solution stacks, BofA estimates. Both numbers are climbing as neocloud providers expand.

Bank of America lifts its Dell Technologies price target to $280 ahead of the company's Q1 earnings report on May 28.

Photo by Bloomberg on Getty Images

Dell's $43 billion backlog is doing the heavy lifting

The fundamental backdrop behind both upgrades is the same: a record order book that keeps getting larger.

Dell exited fiscal 2026 with a record $43 billion AI server backlog and more than $64 billion in total AI server orders for the year, based on the company's Q4 FY26 earnings release filed with the SEC.

Three numbers tell most of the story:

AI-optimized server revenue: $8.95 billion in Q4 FY26, up 342% year over year
FY27 AI server revenue guide: Approximately $50 billion, roughly double FY26
FY27 total revenue guide: $138 billion to $142 billion, implying approximately 23% growth

Source: Seeking Alpha

COO Jeff Clarke called fiscal 2026 a defining year, with growth coming from three distinct customer groups: neocloud providers, sovereign governments, and traditional enterprises.

Why BoA's second upgrade in 21 days matters more than the first

Analyst targets get raised all the time. Targets that get raised twice in three weeks on the same stock usually reflect something more specific, however.

In Dell's case, BoA's April 27 move from $205 to $246 priced in the agentic AI demand thesis. The May 18 move to $280 layers in something extra: margin expansion and the read-through from Dell's hardware peers reporting strong enterprise demand.

The runway also shows up in how other Wall Street firms are repositioning. In the past two weeks alone:

JPMorgan raised its target to $280 from $205 on May 15, citing easing memory cost headwinds, Yahoo Finance reported.
Citi lifted its target to $290 from $235 on May 14.
Mizuho raised to $300 from $260 on May 12, maintaining an outperform rating.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Three of those four firms now sit at or above BofA's new $280 figure.

The risk side of the trade: UBS and the valuation argument

Not every analyst is on board. UBS analyst David Vogt downgraded Dell to neutral on May 11, even while raising his target to $243 from $167, according to Investing.com.

The UBS argument is one that Dell investors should sit with. Shares now trade at roughly 20 times calendar 2026 and 18 times 2027 UBS EPS estimates, compared with about 10 times consensus earnings as recently as February.

More BofA analyst calls:

In other words, the multiple expansion that drove much of the recent rally may have already done most of its work.

Investor expectations could be pricing in 2027 EPS near $17, which is 25% above the UBS estimate. That gap is the valuation risk worth tracking.

How Dell stacks up against the S&P 500 in 2026

Dell shares opened at $240.04 on May 18 and sit close to the 52-week high of $263.99, with a market cap near $155 billion, MarketBeat data show.

Year-to-date performance comparison:

DELL stock: Up roughly 91% YTD as of mid-May, 24/7 Wall St confirmed
S&P 500 (SPY): Roughly flat to modestly positive over the same stretch
DELL one-year return: Approximately 134%

Source: 24/7 Wall St

The gap is unusual for a legacy hardware name, and it reflects how much the AI server narrative has reshaped Dell's valuation framework since the February print.

What needs to happen for the $280 target to hold

A target is a thesis, not a forecast. For BofA's $280 number to look conservative rather than optimistic, a few specific things need to land on May 28, when Dell reports Q1 FY27 earnings.

AI server revenue near the guided $13 billion for the quarter
ISG operating margin sustained above 13%, signaling backlog conversion is profitable
A reaffirmed or raised $50 billion full-year AI server revenue guide
No major commentary on memory cost headwinds returning

The infrastructure side of the equation already looks supportive. Dell maintains a deep partnership with Nvidia for AI silicon, and a recent $1.44 billion deal with Boost Run for enterprise AI infrastructure shows the demand pipeline is still widening.

What investors should actually do with this

The two-in-21-days BofA move is not a buy signal by itself. It is a confidence signal, and confidence signals near 52-week highs require discipline.

A few practical points worth weighing:

Earnings on May 28 will likely set the next leg of the trade in either direction.
Position sizing matters more at $240 than it did at $148 in February.
The bull case rests on Dell sustaining margins above 13% while shipping a record backlog.
The bear case rests on multiple compressions if guidance disappoints even slightly.

For long-term portfolios, Dell's combination of a $43 billion backlog, a 20% dividend hike, and a $10 billion buyback authorization remains a real story. For shorter horizons, the May 28 print is where the thesis gets tested.

Bank of America's second upgrade in three weeks tells you the analyst sees the runway extending. UBS's downgrade reminds you the path to that runway is narrower than it was three months ago.

Both can be true.

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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 9:07 PM.