Markets
markets

Gold is now up 29% so far in 2024

The precious metal is having one of its best years on record, with prices rising almost 30% so far this year, fuelled by the start of US interest rate cuts, and, more recently, rising geopolitical tension. That’s better than the 20% rise that the S&P 500 Index has mustered in 2024 so far.

Typically known as a good hedge against inflation and a safe-haven asset in times of stress, the metal has been trading at or around its all-time record for more than a week — one ounce will set you back ~$2,665.

More Markets

See all Markets
Arista Networks Reports Q3 Earnings

Arista Networks beats expectations, but stock dives on mediocre guidance

All those data centers are going to need a lot of switches and routers as well as GPUs.

markets

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

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

  • Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $1.20 (estimate: $1.17)

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

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

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

Its Q4 guidance for sales of $9.3 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.

Even so, shares are off about 2% in after-hours trading as of 4:24 p.m. ET.

“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,” write Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Kunjan Sobhani and Oscar Hernandez Tejada. “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.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.