The hardest time to buy a stock is after it has already made everyone else money. You see the chart, you feel late, and you wonder whether the easy gains are gone.
The hardest time to hold one is the same moment. If you rode a stock up, every headline starts to feel like a reason to lock in the win before it slips away.
Both instincts come from the same place. Nobody wants to be the last buyer at the top or the seller who bailed right before the next leg higher. A scheduled company event, with a date circled on everyone’s calendar, can make either mistake feel urgent.
That’s why investor days matter more than they sound. Companies use them to reset long-term targets and expectations for years at a time, and one carefully staged presentation can decide whether a hot stock keeps running or takes a breather.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) holds exactly that kind of event on Sept. 30, after shares more than doubled this year. Bank of America says it’s still a buy, which matters whether you’re chasing the rally or sitting on gains.
How Juniper deal turned HPE into an AI networking play
HPE closed its roughly $14 billion purchase of Juniper Networks in July 2025. That deal turned networking into the company’s fastest-growing business, just as AI data centers started demanding faster connections among chips, servers, and sites.
The payoff showed up in the fiscal third quarter. Revenue rose 34% to $12.2 billion, and networking revenue jumped 74.9% to $2.9 billion with a 22% operating margin, according to HPE’s earnings release. Much of that networking jump reflects a full quarter of Juniper versus a partial one a year earlier.
Related: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. Q3 2026 Earnings: Recap of $HPE Earnings Call, Forecast
“Our results demonstrate the durability of our profitable growth momentum,” CEO Antonio Neri said in the release. HPE also expanded a deal to supply Juniper networking gear for Oracle’s AI infrastructure.
Management then raised the bar for next year. HPE guided to fiscal 2027 revenue growth of 13% to 17%, adjusted EPS growth of 16% to 20%, and at least $5 billion in free cash flow, Yahoo Finance reported.
Bank of America sees 40% upside ahead of Sept. 30 investor day
BofA Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan reiterated his buy rating and $88 price target in a Sept. 27 note shared with TheStreet. That sits about 40% above the $62.94 reference price in the report.
Mohan expects Executive VP of HPE Networking Rami Rahim to cover four topics on Sept. 30, according to the note:
