NEW YORK, May 5, 2026, 16:02 EDT
Advanced Micro Devices climbed 4.2% to $355.92 late Tuesday ahead of quarterly earnings, a key moment for investors wondering if the AI-chip surge has run out of steam. Just a day earlier, an HSBC downgrade had briefly dragged the stock down. Nvidia edged lower. Intel, meanwhile, posted strong gains during the session.
Timing’s key here. AMD will release its fiscal first-quarter earnings after the U.S. bell, and management will address investors at 5 p.m. ET. That puts the spotlight directly on demand for its server processors and AI chips as soon as results drop.
Wall Street wants to see growth: Analysts at FactSet, according to MarketWatch, are calling for revenue to hit about $9.9 billion, with adjusted earnings at $1.29 a share—both figures up by about a third from the same period last year. The real spotlight, though, is on data-center revenue, a segment closely linked to AI. That’s forecast to jump 53% to $5.6 billion.
The question isn’t about AMD’s growth—it’s about the pace, especially after the stock’s sharp run-up. HSBC’s Frank Lee downgraded AMD from “buy” to “hold,” pointing out he doesn’t see room for a positive earnings surprise. The analyst cited tougher expectations for server CPUs, which are the core chips powering servers as well as personal computers. Stocktwits
CNBC’s Jim Cramer pushed back on that call, telling Technobezz that AMD’s CPU business is gaining ground as agentic AI — think software handling tasks without much human input — picks up inside data centers. “CPUs are what is being used by agents,” Cramer said, and he sees room for AMD shares to climb sharply higher. Technobezz
Not everyone is on the same page. C.J. Muse at Cantor Fitzgerald is calling for a “strong beat” from AMD, with first-quarter revenue pegged at $10.4 billion—topping the $9.9 billion FactSet consensus. He points to robust server and PC demand, plus firmer CPU prices, as the drivers. MarketWatch
Competition is fierce. Nvidia still owns the GPU market—those chips are key for AI training and inference. Intel’s latest gains have some investors betting that AMD could be catching a tailwind from higher CPU demand. Unlike Intel, which controls more of its own fabs, AMD’s manufacturing is mostly in the hands of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
AMD’s February guidance did little to settle investor nerves. The chipmaker projected first-quarter revenue in the neighborhood of $9.8 billion, swinging by $300 million either way. But Reuters noted that this estimate factored in some AI-chip sales to China, and analysts flagged ongoing concerns about heavy reliance on a few customers and the competitive pressure from Nvidia.
The bull thesis now stretches past just the upcoming quarter. Motley Fool’s John Ballard noted AMD shares soared roughly 75% over the past month, yet he maintained the valuation wasn’t out of line given management’s longer-range profit goals. Ballard pointed to Meta’s intentions to use AMD’s Instinct GPUs, along with a previous agreement with OpenAI.
Strong results might not cut it here. Yahoo Finance pointed out that AMD shares could drop after earnings, while Investopedia noted options markets were pricing in a swing of up to 8% either way by week’s end.
That doesn’t give AMD much leeway to disappoint. A clear beat, firmer data-center signals, and any indication that TSMC supply won’t hold back shipments could keep the rally rolling. But if the report just matches expectations, the stock’s latest surge could quickly become its biggest headache.
