Editor’s Note: Related Tickers: Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD), Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH)
Intel Plans to Push Atom Prices Down Further to Compete With Arm (Maximum PC)
Years ago Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) was putting pressure on Intel to continue innovating on the high end, but fast forwarded to 2013 and Intel is the last man standing. The new war is in ultra-low powered chips, and the company is years behind. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s response to ARM was the ATOM series of processors, but they were stuck trying to power a heavy and bloated Microsoft OS, while ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH) had custom designed operating systems that extended battery life, and created an entirely new market. This year the two companies are destined to meet in the middle, and it will be a pivotal moment in the history of computing. Intel has announced its plans to compete with the current crop of dirt cheap ARM based devices, and to the winner goes the spoils.
The biggest, baddest, most powerful video card ever has been sold on eBay. The engineering sample of the card was let loose by eBay user wowbagger1234. He initially started selling the device for $30,000 but that price was curb-stomped by a lot of big eBay players who brought the final bid to a massive $96,100. The user who won the card on eBay originally bid $40,000 even on the card, but was quickly outbid by about a dozen other users. Finally, the winner retracted his original bid and then clocked it up a notch to $96,100. Impressive.
Forbes Earnings Preview: Broadcom (Forbes)
Analysts foresee Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM) announcing decreased profits on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, when it reports its first quarter earnings. Despite this, they are generally optimistic about the stock. Analysts are projecting Broadcom to come in with earnings of 35 cents per share, down 5.4% from a year ago when it reported earnings of 37 cents per share. Over the past three months, the consensus estimate has fallen from 38 cents. For the fiscal year, analysts are expecting earnings of $1.95 per share. Revenue is expected to be $1.91 billion for the quarter, 4.5% higher than the year-earlier total of $1.83 billion. For the year, revenue is expected to come in at $8.45 billion.
ARM Holdings plc Upgraded by Goldman Sachs to Conviction-Buy (ARMH) (Zolmax)
Goldman Sachs upgraded shares of ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH) from a buy rating to a conviction-buy rating in a report issued on Wednesday, TheFlyOnTheWall.com reports. Shares of ARM Holdings plc traded up 0.54% during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $39.815. ARM Holdings plc has a 52 week low of $21.64 and a 52 week high of $44.47. The stock’s 50-day moving average is currently $41.57. The company has a market cap of $18.534 billion and a P/E ratio of 71.35.
Nvidia’s GTX Titan LE and Titan Ultra leaked (ExtremeTech)
The report comes out of 3DCenter.org, which suggests that NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) will be giving the Titan two new buddies, expanding the card’s moniker into…
…a brand rather than letting it sit stagnant on just one model. First, it would seem Nvidia realizes the Titan is a little too expensive at $1,000 — regardless of its strength and efficiency — and will be releasing a budget model of the card. The cheaper model, dubbed the GTX Titan LE, will reportedly feature 208 TMUs and 2,496 CUDA cores (the standard Titan has 240 TMUs and 2,688 CUDA cores). The LE’s memory will also drop from 6GB of DDR5 to 5GB, but its power consumption will drop as well, from the standard model’s 206W to around 180W or so.
AMD Welcomes Raja Koduri as Corporate Vice President, Visual Computing (MarketWatch)
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) today announced that Raja Koduri, 44, has rejoined the company as corporate vice president, Visual Computing, reporting to Mark Papermaster, senior vice president and chief technology officer. In his new role, Koduri will have overall responsibility for driving AMD’s innovation in visual and accelerated computing. “Maintaining AMD’s position as a leader in visual computing is the key to our long-term success. As one of the industry’s foremost experts in developing leading-edge visual computing solutions, Raja brings exceptional vision and strength to AMD’s world-class engineering leadership team,” said Papermaster. “Given his past record of success, Raja will help Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) lead the way in visual and accelerated computing and ensure we continue developing the industry-leading graphics IP that forms the foundation for our future growth.”
Intel Corporation (INTC): Key Takeaways From The Earnings Call, A Look Back (Insider Monkey)
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s profits fell 25% year-over-year in the first quarter, and missed estimates by a penny per share. On the company’s earnings call management noted the declining PC market is a significant headwind to the company, but remained optimistic for the latter half of the year. Retiring CEO Paul Otellini stated, “The company’s core architectural and manufacturing strength have never been more valuable.” As a chipmaker, Intel remains at the forefront of manufacturing, inventing new processes that allow it to deliver on the promise of Moore’s Law. As companies like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung, and even Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) design computers made to look like watches, battery life will play a significant role. What good is a watch that only works for 12 hours? Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s manufacturing strength lends itself to high-efficiency chips that these devices require.
NVIDIA to return $1 billion to shareholders in current fiscal year (Tempo)
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) announced that it will return $1 billion this fiscal year to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividend payments, including $100 million in stock being repurchased this quarter. This will bring to $1.2 billion the total capital returned to shareholders since the company announced its quarterly dividend programme in November 2012.
Forbes Earnings Preview: ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (Forbes)
Optimism surrounds ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH), as it gets ready to report its first quarter results on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. Analysts are expecting the company to book a profit of 17 cents a share, up from 13 cents a year ago. Analysts are projecting earnings of 76 cents per share for the fiscal year. Revenue is projected to be $250.7 million for the quarter, 18.4% above the year-earlier total of $211.7 million.
SES + Harmonic + Broadcom… (SatBroadcasting™—Ultra HD) (SatNews Publishers)
SES (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange:SESG) announced that, together with its partners Harmonic and Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM), it has pioneered the first Ultra HD transmission in the new HEVC standard live from an ASTRA satellite at 19.2 degrees East. The HEVC standard features…
…an up to 50 percent encoding efficiency improvement, compared to previous test broadcasts in MPEG-4 AVC (H.264). The end-to-end demonstration, which was presented at the SES Industry Days in Luxembourg, used Harmonic’s ProMedia Xpress and a HEVC decoder reference-design system based on Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM)’s BCM7445 device for receiving HEVC encoded Ultra-HD television transmission.
Intel: The Bears Are Out Of Ammo (Seeking Alpha)
It’s a good feeling to know that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) bears have fired all of their ammo. Stacy Rasgon with Sanford Bernstein repeatedly cautioned about Intel’s proposed capital expenditures (“capex”) spending outline at the Q4 2012 call, James Covello of Goldman Sachs has had a $16 price target on the stock for what seems like an eternity, and then you had Mr. Alex Guana from JMP securities try to sell investors an, erm, “amusing” rumor about Haswell’s voltage regulators not working properly. All-in-all, the bears have pretty much exhausted all of the arguments, fired all the ammo, and have said every bearish thing that could possibly be said. And yet the stock keeps climbing. Why?
Broadcom Corp Price Target Lowered to $37.00 at Needham & Company (BRCM) (Mideast Time)
Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM) had its target price cut by Needham & Company from $39.00 to $37.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, Stock Ratings Network reports. They currently have a buy rating on the stock. Shares of Broadcom Corp traded down 0.44% during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $31.89. Broadcom Corp has a 52 week low of $28.60 and a 52 week high of $37.25. The stock’s 50-day moving average is currently $33.98. The company has a market cap of $18.145 billion and a P/E ratio of 25.62.
AMD brought 64-bit to x86 10 years ago today (Inquirer)
A decade ago Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) released the first Opteron processor and with it the first 64-bit x86 processor. AMD’s lavish New York launch for the Opteron processor was far more than a product launch, it was AMD showing it could reproduce the success of the Athlon K7 chip and take the fight to Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) by developing ground breaking new features and not just one-upping its rival on some benchmarks. The firm’s Opteron processor brought 64-bit computing to the commodity x86 chip market, along with an on-die memory controller and the Hypertransport bus all in one product.
