Shares of semiconductor giant Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) have been crushed recently, with AMD stock falling nearly 25% after the company reported mixed first-quarter earnings that included a miss on revenue.
This is what a buying opportunity looks like.
After Monday’s market close, investors were hoping for confirmation that AMD’s results would justify the nearly 300% gains shares had made over the past year. However, with merely in-line EPS and a miss on the top line, compounded by conservative Q2 guidance, investors were spooked.
AMD stock closed Tuesday at $10.32, falling 24% from Monday’s closed of $13.62, while erasing all of it year-to-date gains. The shares are now down 9% year-to-date, versus a 6.8% rise in the S&P 500 index.
There is fear that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) could be chipping away at AMD’s recovery, especially with catalyst from its Ryzen chips now out of the way.
Indeed, there could be an inflection point with the Ryzen line contribution to financial results. Management could just be playing it safe with their forecasts. In either scenario, I still see this as a buying opportunity in AMD stock from a clear overreaction by the market.
The Good With AMD Earnings
Momentum traders who were looking for “pie in the sky” results that would propel AMD shares to new highs have opted to exit their positions. Fundamentally, though, Advanced Micro continues to execute on its stated objectives. Revenues grew 18.3% year-over-year to $984 million. The year-over-year growth was primarily driven by higher GPU sales — the company’s bread-and-butter business.
What’s more, the company’s Computing and Graphics segment, which includes desktop and notebook processors and chipsets, accounted for more than 60% of revenues, and grew almost 30% YOY to $593 million. This growth was driven mainly by stronger desktop and graphics processor sales.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment, which includes server and embedded processors, took in the remaining 40% of revenues, climbing 5.1% year over year to $391 million.
Notably, AMD achieved higher average selling prices (ASP) in both the Client segment and GPUs.
Advanced Micro Devices is set to launch its x86 server CPU, codenamed “Naples,” in the second quarter, combined with its collaboration with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) to incorporate the cloud delivery features of Naples with Microsoft’s “Project Olympus” server platform.
Now’s the time to own AMD, not sell it.
Bottom Line for AMD Stock
The quarter wasn’t breathtaking, but there is certainly nothing wrong with Advanced Micro or its direction. With gains coming in from its major revenue segments, AMD remains on pace for a strong finish in 2017.
And beyond the launch its Naples chip in the second quarter, AMD will also launch its two other Zen-based chips, so there’s more than one horse driving this car.
As such, my crystal ball says AMD stock will regain $15 per share, yielding 45% returns from current levels.
As of this writing, Richard Saintvilus did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
