The biggest profits in tech this year went to investors who owned Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD). Yes, AMD. The little chip company that ended up under Intel Corporation’s (NASDAQ:INTC) heel just last year.
AMD was a $2 stock as recently as February. It opened for trade Dec. 15 at $10.65. That’s a gain of almost 450% in just 10 months.
I wrote about AMD stock two months ago and since then it is up 58%.
You won’t see that kind of success on the company’s income statement, which has accumulated over $450 million in losses over the past three quarters. You may find it hard to justify on the balance sheet, too, which has only recently gotten back below a 50% debt-to-assets ratio. Heck, you won’t even see it in estimates on future earnings, where seven analysts still see losses through most of next year.
Instead you will find it in earnings surprises and anticipation of the future. AMD suddenly looks competitive again.
Zen Becomes Ryzen
Lisa Su, who replaced Rory Read as CEO just over two years ago, has engineered the turnaround with a processing technology called Zen, coming to market next year as a chip called “Ryzen.”
The new chip has a faster clock speed that competes with the best Intel offers. Rather than challenge Intel in the mainstream of personal computing, Ryzen is focused on growing niches like gaming, e-sports and virtual reality, where high performance in the client is key.
Tech analysts looking at the new chip’s specs are impressed, saying Ryzen will define the high-end of PC computing in 2017 by running 40% more instructions per clock, without the high temperatures that kept fast chips down in the past.
Financial analysts looking at the new chip have been upgrading the stock to “buy” and this, combined with top-line revenue that grew from $832 million in the first quarter of the year to over $1.3 billion in the third, have justified the upgrades.
The result is that AMD is now worth almost $10 billion, not the $2 billion it started the year at, and it now has the financial firepower to at least start competing again. The fact that it no longer owns a foundry means it also has less need for capital and can play suppliers off one another.
AMD’s new chips are being produced by GlobalFoundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:TSM). The company has reportedly been talking with Samsung Electronics (OTCMKTS:SSNLF) as well.
Back in the Data Center
AMD has always had a niche in graphics processing, but data centers have spent the past decade focusing on using massive numbers of cheap chips to get more processing power.
That is starting to change. AMD got a big boost in October when Alibaba Group Holding Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ:BABA) said it would use AMD Radeon graphics chips in its cloud offering.
Potential in the cloud market is a second factor that is powering AMD stock forward.
Bottom Line on AMD Stock
There remain AMD bears like Stephen Chu of UBS, who say they’ve seen AMD make big claims against Intel before that turned to dust, and expect the same thing to happen again.
He says the new Ryzen chip is being compared against Intel hardware already on the market, and that the next generation of Intel chips will blow it out of the water. He has a “sell” rating on the shares and a $5 price target.
It’s important to have a bear case when considering a bull investment. Without bears, everyone is in a stock and it is fated to fall in price. Skepticism drives stock prices up a “wall of worry,” often to new highs.
AMD remains a speculative buy, but considering how well it did for speculators in 2016, there should be plenty of buyers in 2017.
Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. His latest novel is Bridget O’Flynn vs. Something Big & Ugly. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned shares in INTC.
