What happened Shares of NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) rose 4.8% on Thursday, following an intriguing new analyst report. So what After speaking with NVIDIA's chief financial officer, Colette Kress, Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis repeated his buy rating on the chipmaker's stock and boosted his price forecast from $740 to a Wall Street high of $854. Lipacis believes investors are underestimating NVIDIA's opportunity to license its new data center software. Yet that could change, Lipacis posits, once the company begins to report its software sales as a separate line item on its income statement. Investors are excited about NVIDIA's long-term growth prospects. Image source: Getty Images. Additionally, Lipacis expects NVIDIA's pending $40 billion acquisition of U.K.-based mobile chip specialist Arm Limited to close in early 2022. He also noted the potential for NVIDIA to bring Arm's technology to new markets, including data centers, automobiles, and the Internet of Things. Now what Lipacis is right to highlight NVIDIA's software ambitions. Software can be significantly more profitable than computer hardware. And should this emerging business help to improve NVIDIA's overall profit margins, investors will likely be willing to pay a higher price for its earnings. For his part, Lipacis' new price target is based on a price-to-earnings ratio of 25 on his $50 EPS estimate for the company in 2025. 10 stocks we like better than NVIDIAWhen our award-winning analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and NVIDIA wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of June 7, 2021 Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and NVIDIA. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source