AMD Stock Slumps on Disappointing Sales Forecast—Key Price Levels to Watch

Despite surpassing fourth-quarter revenue estimates, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares fell sharply in pre-market trading Wednesday after the chipmaker issued current-quarter sales guidance that missed analysts’ expectations amid softening demand for its PC chips and central processing units (CPUs).The Santa Clara, California company said it expects first-quarter sales of about $5.4 billion, plus or minus $300 million, falling short of the $5.73 billion mark Wall Street was looking for.

AMD projects its PC chips business to record a decline in sales grow from the December quarter while anticipating its data center revenue to remain flat in the period, with growth in graphics processing units (GPUs) sales helping to offset slowing CPU demand. The company said it now sees 2024 AI GPU chip sales of $3.5 billion, up substantially from its earlier forecast of $2 billion. “In cloud, we are working closely with Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Meta (META) and other large cloud customers on Instinct GPU deployments powering both their internal AI workloads and external offerings,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said during the company’s earnings call.2

In the fourth quarter, the company posted revenue of $6.17 billion, which came in slightly above the $6.12 billion consensus analysts had expected. The top line received a boost from the company’s data center and client segments, which reported respective year-over-year (YOY) growth of 38% and 62% due to increasing demand for it Instinct graphics processors used for AI and recent chip launches.Since briefly dipping below the 200-day moving average in late October, AMD shares have tracked steadily higher, with trading volume increasing in the lead up to the company’s earnings. If the stock undergoes an earnings-driven retracement, keep an eye on a three month trendline that may potentially provide support around $160. A failure to hold this key chart level could mark the start of a possible trend reversal.