1. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 124
Jim Cramer is extremely bullish on AMD, saying in a latest program that he “wishes” he’d be able to buy more AMD shares but said he’s “restricted” for his charitable trust.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) impressed Wall Street with solid second-quarter results amid strong data center revenue. Data center revenue in the period grew 49% year over year.
But can Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) continue gaining in the coming months? Analysts are hopeful amid the launch of its Instinct™ MI300 Series accelerators that are designed for AI and HPC workloads. The new chip competes with Nvidia’s H100 AI chip. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) now plans to release new AI chips annually, including the MI325X in Q4 this year, the MI350 in 2025, and the MI400 in 2026. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) said MI350 would be a competitor to Nvidia’s Blackwell.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) data center business doubled its revenue but this growth was not at the cost of profits. The segment’s operating income increased by 405% compared to the year-earlier period. However, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) data center business is still very small compared with NVDA. It generated about $2.8 billion in revenue vs. $22.6 billion in quarterly revenue for NVDA. However, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) CPU and GPU businesses are also thriving. Ryzen CPU sales increased 49% over year and slightly quarter over quarter. Although gaming revenue declined 59% due to decreased PlayStation and Xbox sales, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) Radeon 6000 GPUs saw a year-over-year sales increase.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) is trading 17% below its 3-year average P/E ratio. The company is estimated to grow its EPS by 43% in the long term, compared to 33% for Nvidia. During the third quarter, its revenue growth is expected to come in at 15% on a QoQ basis. Amid growth forecasts based on new chips and an expected increase in AI spending by other companies, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) forward P/E of 38 makes the stock undervalued at the current levels.
Meridian Contrarian Fund stated the following regarding Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) is a global semiconductor chip maker specializing in central processing units (CPUs), which are considered the core component of most computing devices, and graphics processing units (GPUs), which accelerate operations running on CPUs. We invested in 2018 when it was a mid-cap value stock plagued by many years of underperformance due to lagging technology and lost market hi share versus competitors Intel and Nvidia. Our research identified that changes and investments made by current management under CEO Lisa Su had, over several years, finally resulted in compelling technology that positioned AMD as a stronger competitor to Nvidia and that its latest products were superior to Intel’s. We invested on the the belief that AMD’s valuation at that that time did not reflect the potential for its technology leadership to generate significant market share gains and improved profits. This thesis has been playing out for several years. During the quarter, AMD unveiled more details about its upcoming GPU products for the AI market. The stock reacted positively to expectations that AMD’s GPU servers will be a viable alternative to Nvidia. Although we pared back our exposure to AMD into strength as part of our risk-management practice, we maintained a position in the stock. We believe AMD will continue to gain share in large and growing markets and is reasonably valued relative to the potential for significantly higher earnings.”
While we acknowledge the potential of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMD but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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