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Semiconductors Stocks

AMD Bucks The Trend – The Stock Is Up 5% 

  • Advanced Micro Devices press release (NASDAQ:AMD): Q2 Non-GAAP EPS of $0.69 beats by $0.01. 
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  • Revenue of $5.84B (+9.0% Y/Y) beats by $120M. 
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  • Record Data Center segment revenue of $2.8 billion was up 115% year-over-year primarily driven by the steep ramp of AMD Instinct™ GPU shipments, and strong growth in 4th Gen AMD EPYC™ CPU sales. Revenue increased 21% sequentially primarily driven by the strong ramp of AMD Instinct GPU shipments. 
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  • Client segment revenue was $1.5 billion, up 49% year-over-year and 9% sequentially primarily driven by sales of AMD Ryzen™ processors. 
  • Gaming segment revenue was $648 million, down 59% year-over-year and 30% sequentially primarily due to a decrease in semi-custom revenue. 
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  • For the third quarter of 2024, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $6.7 billion vs. $6.61B consensus, plus or minus $300 million. At the mid-point of the revenue range, this represents year-over-year growth of approximately 16% and sequential growth of approximately 15%. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 53.5%. 
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Stocks

AMD Q1 Results: Strong Data Center Growth Amid Challenges in Gaming and Embedded Segments

AMD Quarterly Result

The Datacenter and client segments did well.

AMD’s struggles outside the Datacenter continue with gaming and embedded segments still dealing with inventory digestion, but they did come in within estimates and kept guidance in line with the previous one. 

Source: Seeking Alpha

  • Advanced Micro Devices press release (NASDAQ: AMD): Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $0.62 beats by $0.01.
  • Revenue of $5.47B (+2.2% Y/Y) beats by $20M.
  • Record Data Center segment revenue of $2.3 billion was up 80% year-over-year driven by growth in both AMD Instinct™ GPUs and 4th Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs. Revenue increased 2% sequentially driven by the first full quarter of AMD Instinct GPU sales, partially offset by a seasonal decline in server CPU sales.
  • Client segment revenue was $1.4 billion, up 85% year-over-year driven primarily by AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series processor sales. Revenue decreased 6% sequentially.
  • Gaming segment revenue was $922 million, down 48% year-over-year and 33% sequentially due to a decrease in semi-custom revenue and lower AMD Radeon™ GPU sales.
  • Embedded segment revenue was $846 million, down 46% year-over-year and 20% sequentially as customers continued to manage their inventory levels.
  • For the second quarter of 2024, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $5.7 billion, plus or minus $300 million vs. $5.69B consensus. At the mid-point of the revenue range, this represents year-over-year growth of approximately 6% and sequential growth of approximately 4%. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 53%.

The stock is down 3% to $153, after dropping 1% to $158 during market hours.

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Semiconductors

Intel and AMD Face Revenue Impact from China Government Ban, but Scope May Be Limited

source:intel

Intel could lose as much as $1.5B in sales due to China ban; AMD less: Bernstein

The news that China is looking to ban purchases of Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) chips for government use could be a sizable topline hit to the two semiconductor companies, but perhaps not as much as some believe, investment firm Bernstein said.

On a nominal basis, Intel had roughly 27% of its sales in China in 2023 (or $15B), while AMD had roughly 15% or ($3.4B). However, government purchases were much smaller than that — approximately 10% or so — Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said. As such, Intel could see a revenue impact between $1B and $1.5B, while AMD could lose a “few hundred million,” Rasgon said.

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Market Outlook

Great Expectations: Tech Giants’ Solid Earnings Can’t Satisfy High Hopes

Great Expectations. Hi everyone. Sometimes, stocks get ahead of themselves.

Late Tuesday, three of the biggest names in technology—Alphabet, Microsoft, and Advanced Micro Devices—reported December quarter results and offered the latest updates on their AI progress.

While the headline numbers were generally solid, they weren’t good enough to impress investors given the stocks’ big runs.

Microsoft had the best quarter of the bunch, reporting earnings per share of $2.93, well ahead of the analyst consensus of $2.76. Alphabet beat profit estimates, posting EPS of $1.64 versus the consensus of $1.59. AMD’s profit was in line with the estimates, but the company’s revenue outlook was disappointing.

All three stocks were down in mid-day trading Wednesday. Alphabet shares dropped 6%, AMD slipped 3%, and Microsoft was down 1.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was off 1.6%.

The main problem with the reports wasn’t the numbers but the expectations going in. Take AMD’s AI chip outlook. On last night’s conference call with investors, CEO Lisa Su said that AMD now expects revenue for its AI data center MI300 GPU products to surpass $3.5 billion in 2024—up from a $2 billion forecast just three months ago. While the guidance is up significantly, some Wall Street analysts had estimates of up to $8 billion.

Investors would be wise to largely overlook these day-to-day stock movements. The technology companies’ conviction over future AI demand is more important. And, given the latest commentary about capital expenditure budgets, the robust trend is intact.

Microsoft said its expects capex to “increase materially” in the current quarter, and it intends to invest aggressively in the coming quarters. Alphabet said its capex would be “notably larger” in 2024 versus the prior year. Both companies said infrastructure investments are being driven by trends in AI demand.

There’s other evidence the AI arms race is still on beyond the comments from Microsoft and Alphabet. On Monday, Super Micro—a leading independent manufacturer of high-end AI servers for data centers— easily beat expectations and raised its full-year revenue guidance by nearly 40%. Last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in Taiwan that demand for AI GPUs is still outstripping supply, while adding 2024 is going to be a “huge year.”

Finally, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted on social media earlier this month that his company will have 350,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs—and almost 600,000 H100 equivalent GPUs based on total computing power—by the end of this year.

We’ll find out more when Meta, Amazon, and Apple report on Thursday, but all signs suggest that AI spending is still accelerating—no matter what stocks said on Wednesday.

Categories
Stocks

AMD’s Resurgence in the AI Market: Is It Time to Invest?

source

AMD has been mostly relegated to second tier status because of Nvidia’s massive leap in AI related data center revenue, which catapulted it from $27Bn in sales the previous  year to $57Bn in 2023, this year and an estimated $90Bn in 2024.

However, AMD is a scrappy competitor and I have a lot of respect for Dr Lisa Su, who’s transformed this company from a commodity CPU/GPU semis supplier to game consoles and PC’s to a solid competitor in the data center segment. Most of Intel’s market share losses can be traced to AMD’s strengths!.

While Nvidia is likely to continue getting a lion’s share of AI GPU revenue for at least the next 2-3 years and in fact when AMD guided to about only $2Bn in AI/GPU revenue for 2024, during their last earnings call in Oct,  I felt it was too little to buy AMD at that time. Besides the hardware, Nvidia’s moat is CUDA, its operating system, which really makes its GPU’s so much more powerful. I didn’t see AMD getting much traction on that account.

However, that was a mistake as it turned out to be a conservative estimate.

This is from UBS analysts:

Recent channel and customer checks confirmed their view that AMD has a firm demand commitment for more than 400,000 MI300A/X units for 2024, the analysts said. This is a number that is fairly consistent with where the analysts have seen demand since last summer but they have been wary of double ordering and unsure of supply.

The analysts added that after having gone back to several customers and suppliers, they are more confident that these units are real and AMD now has sufficient Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate capacity to do over 10% the volumes of Nvidia (NVDA).

*Even assuming a very conservative average selling price (which could be as high as $20,000 or more for some customers), this suggests $5B for data center GPU revenue is a pedestrian target for this year. Even this implies AMD exits the year at a *run-rate which could be close to $10B per year* with AMD still likely to grow GPU units quarter-over-quarter through much of 2025, the analysts added.

AMD has already moved up from $135 this month to $177 and it lost a little bit after Intel’s poor guidance. I’m going to start buying this slowly – knowing fully well that I’m late but I do believe in its long term story and the $10Bn run rate is an excellent number – If we believe in the AI story and the resulting surge in its building blocks, there there is no way only one company, Nvidia can supply to the entire market – AMD will get a decent foothold. I’m anticipating +$8 in earnings two years out, that should be priced at 30x or $240, which is still 36% higher than today’s price, nothing to be sneezed at.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) stock rose 1.8% in Friday premarket trading after the bank said it expects 2024 revenue to increase to about $80B-$81B from $78.5B in 2023, driven by gains in treasury and trade solutions, securities services, a rebound in investment banking and wealth, and lower partner payments in retail services. The revenue outlook excludes markets and divestitures.

Net interest income, excluding markets, is expected to decline modestly as global interest rates fall. Citi (C) expects mid-single-digit loan growth, driven by its card business and modest operating deposit growth, it said in its earnings slides.

Citibank’s adjusted earnings also beat expectations, but they expect only 2% revenue growth for 2024 and a modest decline in NII. Their allowance for losses was $397 Mn so no dire warnings there either.

Wells Fargo also beat adjusted earnings and revenue expectations but is more pessimistic for 2024. It expects net interest income to be about 7%-9% lower than 2023’s $52.4B level on lower interest rates, an expected decline in average loans, and further attrition in Consumer Banking and Lending deposits. Their provision for credit losses was $1.28B, higher than the other two but below expectations. *Q4 net loan charge-off, as a percentage of average total loans, of 0.53% vs. 0.36% in the prior quarter and 0.23% a year ago.*

Percentage of loans charged-off is a key measure to monitor; in Wells Fargo’s case it was double of the previous year’s – will need to keep a strict watch on this.

Categories
Semiconductors

Super Micro Computer (SMCI) Earnings Report: Key Indicator for AMD and Nvidia’s Performance

source

Super Micro Computer (SMCI) reports this evening, after market close. If you recall, Super Micro had shot up from $300 just two weeks back to the $490 it is now, because of its revised guidance  – it too had its Nvidia moment!

Second-quarter anticipated sales now expected to be between $3.60 billion and $3.65 billion, which was a significant increase from the previous forecast of $2.70 billion to $2.90 billion. The company anticipates an improvement in adjusted earnings to the range of $5.40 to $5.55, up from the initial estimate of $4.40 to $4.48. 

This new guidance handily surpasses analysts’ expectations for the second quarter, set at $2.84 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $4.55. At midpoints, these revised projections indicate a 29% rise in revenue and a 24% increase in non-GAAP net income compared to Super Micro Computer’s earlier guidance.

I’m more interested in SMCI’s results as a good indicator for AMD and Nvidia (Nvidia), since they are the largest supplier for scalable rack systems for the data center GPU’s. If they overshoot even this revised estimate, I would look at AMD more closely.