New York, February 26, 2026, 12:17 EST — Regular session
- AMAT opened Thursday at $390.15, moved between $366.56 and $392.41, and is sitting just shy of its 52-week high of $395.90.
- Director Judy Bruner offloaded 3,969 shares on Feb. 23, according to a Form 4. The weighted average price landed between $376 and $378, bringing in close to $1.5 million.
Applied Materials shares slipped 5.45% to $373.43 by midday Thursday, undoing gains from the previous session’s rally.
After surging to a fresh 52-week peak on Wednesday, shares of the chip equipment company pulled back. The stock had jumped 4.5% to finish at $394.95 in that previous session, trading above its 50-day average volume, according to MarketWatch data.
Chipmakers and AI-exposed names took a hit as Nvidia shares slipped, even after posting robust numbers. “Investors have been wary of the AI trade,” Jeff Schulze, who heads economic and market strategy at ClearBridge Investments, told Reuters. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index dropped roughly 3% earlier in the session, according to Reuters. Reuters
Applied Materials (AMAT) provides the machinery for chip production and packaging, so its shares are frequently seen as a gauge of chipmaker capex. AI spending jitters? Equipment stocks like this one don’t always move gently.
Behind the scenes, analyst targets have ticked up. According to Nasdaq—using Fintel data—the average 12-month price target for Applied moved to $414.06 per share, up from $329.63 back on Feb. 1. Estimates now stretch from roughly $278 to $494.
Applied’s last quarterly update, out Feb. 12, put its second-quarter revenue projection at roughly $7.65 billion, give or take $500 million, with adjusted earnings seen at $2.64 a share, plus or minus 20 cents—numbers topping what analysts were looking for, according to Reuters. CEO Gary Dickerson pegged the upbeat guide to a ramp-up in AI computing investments across the industry. Over at Rothschild & Co. Redburn, Timm Schulze-Melander described memory and logic-foundry capex as “two sides of the same coin.” (Logic chips act as the “brains” in most systems, while high-bandwidth memory—HBM—refers to stacked DRAM built to work with advanced AI chips.) Reuters
The rally hasn’t shaken off concerns over regulation and China. In an SEC filing dated Feb. 11, Applied disclosed it will pay $252.5 million to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. The settlement resolves a probe involving export-controls compliance and customer shipments to China. Applied also committed to run internal audits and employee training.
The next moves land on the calendar. According to MarketScreener’s events page, the company will show up at investor conferences in early March. Fiscal second-quarter earnings are slated for release on May 14.
