Al Root
Robot euphoria is slowly taking over Wall Street.
Shares of lithium miner Albemarle rose 9.9% on Tuesday to $160.56 a share, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.
The jump came after Jefferies analyst Laurence Alexander raised his price target for Albemarle stock to $167 from $152, while reiterating his Buy rating.
" Autonomous robots likely amplify stationary storage, accelerate EV adoption," Alexander wrote recently. That means all the machines trained by artificial intelligence, from robots to robo-taxis, need lithium-ion batteries -- a tailwind for lithium demand. What's more, AI computers that train all "smart machines" need power, which is good for utility-scale battery storage businesses.
"Commodity fly-ups are usually a function of demand shocks," added Alexander. AI-trained machinery is the shock. It will raise lithium demand forecasts.
The last demand shock for lithium was EVs: Albemarle stock traded above $334 a share in late 2022 when EV demand strained lithium supply and pushed up prices for the commodity.
Benchmark lithium prices topped out at about $84,000 per metric ton in late 2022 -- and they were about one-tenth that level at points in 2025. But capacity curtailments and more demand for energy storage have pushed prices back, and were at about $18,000 a ton on Tuesday.
Higher commodity prices have been a boon to Albemarle stock. Through midday trading, shares were up about 75% over the past three months.
Wall Street is slowly catching up. Only 36% of analysts covering Albemarle rate shares Buy, according to FactSet. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%. But the Buy-rating ratio for Albemarle was about 30% a few months ago. The average analyst price target for the stock has risen to about $128 a share from $78 a share over that span.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 06, 2026 12:20 ET (17:20 GMT)
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