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Luke Kawa

AMD posts top- and bottom-line beat in Q3 with Q4 sales guidance ahead of estimates

Advanced Micro Devices reported third-quarter results after the close on Tuesday that exceeded analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines, with guidance to match.

  • Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $1.20 (compared to an analyst consensus estimate of $1.17)

  • Revenue: $9.25 billion (estimate: $8.74 billion, guidance: $8.4 billion to $9 billion)

  • Data center revenue: $4.34 billion (estimate: $4.14 billion)

  • Adjusted gross margin: 54% (estimate: 54%, guidance: 54%)

Its Q4 guidance for sales of $9.3 billion to $9.9 billion was strong relative to the anticipated $9.2 billion, while its adjusted gross margin outlook of 54.5% is bang in line with estimates.

Shares were as much as 6% lower following these results, but have since recovered and are in positive territory.

“AMD’s strong 3Q sales beat and 4Q outlook were likely driven by stronger PC and server CPU demand — similar to Intel’s results — along with continued share gains,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Kunjan Sobhani and Oscar Hernandez Tejada wrote. “The GPU ramp-up remains ahead of expectations, aided by a gaming rebound.”

AMD has had a high-profile Q4 so far, striking a megadeal with OpenAI that its CFO said “is expected to deliver tens of billions of dollars in revenue.” That announcement prompted more than 20 price target hikes from Wall Street analysts in a 24-hour span.

The company followed that up with a pact with Oracle, which said it would deploy 50,000 of AMD’s new flagship chips in data centers starting in the second half of next year. On the upcoming conference call, the Street will be looking for as much color as possible on the sales outlook for those MI450 chips.

Ahead of this release, Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore wrote:

“The focus should remain on MI450. AMD’s rack scale solution shipping next year is the key, and we are excited to see what the company can do. It’s still early to make market share assessments, and while the Open AI agreement is clearly an accelerant, the reliance on cloud providers to ramp those 6 gigawatts still creates some uncertainty. Ultimately, to drive share gains, the company will need to provide better ROI than NVIDIA can offer, and customers still raise questions about that given lower rack density and the need to resolve ecosystem issues.”

The chip designer was the third-best-performing member of the VanEck Semiconductor ETF in 2025 heading into this report, with shares having more than doubled year to date.

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Nvidia poised to snap longest run without a record close since the AI boom began

The stock price of the company responsible for the brains of the AI boom is finally showing some brawn again.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, is poised to close at a record high for the first time since October 29, 2025, on Friday (if it ends above $207.04).

The AI chip trade is on fire, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slated to deliver its 18th consecutive gain as Intel’s robust results and outlook juice the entire ecosystem. Hyperscalers report earnings next week, and their capex guidance can be thought of as the earnings guidance for Nvidia and other AI suppliers for the quarters to come.

This would end Nvidia’s longest stretch without a record close since the unofficial start of the AI boom (when the chip designer delivered blowout quarterly results in May 2023).

(Sorry if I jinx this!)

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Lilly slips after prescriptions for its weight-loss pill come in below expectations in second week

Eli Lilly fell on Friday after prescription data for its new weight-loss pill, Foundayo, showed that it’s having a significantly slower rollout than its top competitor.

The pill was prescribed about 3,700 times in its second week, according to IQVIA data cited by Deutsche Bank analysts, compared to the roughly 8,000 they were expecting. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill, which came out in January, hit over 18,000 prescriptions in its second week.

The FDA approved Foundayo on April 1 and shipments began on April 9. Deutsche analysts noted that Lilly’s GLP-1 injections, which currently outsell Novo’s, also had a slower start.

Lilly fell more than 4% after the numbers were released. Novo Nordisk rose more than 5%.

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The chip rally is getting so intense, even Qualcomm gets to surge

If you’re a good host, even the last person who shows up to the party gets to have a good time.

On that note, beleaguered Qualcomm — the worst-performing member of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index this year — is staging a furious rally on Friday, with the industry poised to deliver its 18th consecutive session of gains.

Intel’s earnings are buoying the semi space broadly on Friday, and Qualcomm isn’t being left out. Options activity is also elevated and tilted toward the bull side. As of 9:56 a.m. ET, more than 48,000 calls have changed hands, roughly double its full-day average for the past 20 sessions. Its put/call ratio of 0.17 is well below the 20-day average of 0.44.

The San Diego-based firm has been negative in 2026 since the seventh session of the year, and even with today’s advance, remains mired in the red year to date. The stock cratered after reporting Q1 earnings in early February because its poor Q2 guidance seemingly confirmed fears that smartphone sales would come under pressure from rising memory chip prices and limited availability. Smartphone chips are still Qualcomm’s primary business, accounting for nearly two-thirds of revenues in its most recent quarter, and memory chip sellers appear to be incentivized to meet demand from major AI customers first.

Qualcomm reports Q2 earnings next Wednesday, but that release will likely be overshadowed by the four Magnificent 7 hyperscalers releasing results after the close.

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