Broadcom Stock to Soar to $300, Analyst Predicts

How high will Broadcom Corp.’s soaring stock price rise after hitting another record Friday? Up to $300 in the next year, says one analyst at Solomon Smith Barney. Stock in the Irvine chip maker moved up $3.31 a share Friday to close at $225.31. In midday trading, the stock spiked at $230.25 a share. Financial analyst Clark R. Westmont, who raised Broadcom to a “buy” recommendation from “outperform,” predicted that demand for the company’s home-networking, cable modem and high-speed ethernet technologies will boom in 2000. “Just as Microsoft Windows and Intel microprocessors together defined the ‘Wintel’ computer platform, Broadcom and [business partner] Cisco [Systems Inc.] have emerged as the twin pillars of the communications space,” Westmont wrote in the report released Friday. “Competitors and customers alike see both companies as the gold standard in technology and product delivery.” Since the beginning of the year, the value of Broadcom stock has risen 229%. With Friday’s stock gain, co-founder Henry Samueli’s Broadcom holdings rose to $4.26 billion from $4.2 billion, and co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III’s to $4.24 billion from $4.17 billion.