Why 4 Beaten-Down Tech Stock Leaders May Be Massive Second-Half Winners

Technology

Published: May 18, 2021 7:52 am

Over the course of the past year, investors have experienced one of the most volatile and bizarre stock markets on record. It started with a massive one-month 35% drop that ended in March of 2020 and went on to an almost unfathomable rally during the worst pandemic in the United States in decades. Toss in record supply chain disruptions that have caused production delays, and rising prices that despite the Federal Reserve’s “transitory” commentary are having an impact, and you had all the ingredients for a wild and crazy ride.
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One surprising item we found when analyzing the S&P 500 winners and losers for the year to date was that four of the stocks that are down the most are technology leaders that for a variety of reasons have taken a beating. We decided to screen them against our 24/7 Wall St. research database, looking for Wall Street firms that had Buy ratings and were still very positive on these four top companies. Remember that no single analyst call should ever be used as a basis to buy or sell a stock.

AMD

This top semiconductor stock is down almost 19% year to date. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) operates as a semiconductor company worldwide. Its products include x86 microprocessors as an accelerated processing unit, chipsets, discrete and integrated graphics processing units (GPUs), data center and professional GPUs, and development services. They also include server and embedded processors, and semi-custom system-on-chip products, development services and technology for game consoles.

AMD provides x86 microprocessors for personal computers under the AMD Ryzen, AMD Ryzen PRO, Ryzen, Threadripper, AMD A-Series, AMD FX, AMD Athlon, AMD Athlon PRO and AMD Pro A-Series processors brands. It provides microprocessors for notebook and 2-in-1s under the AMD Ryzen, AMD A-Series, AMD Athlon, AMD Ryzen PRO, AMD Athlon PRO and AMD Pro A-Series processors brands, as well as microprocessors for servers under the AMD EPYC and AMD Opteron brands. Its chipsets are sold under the AMD trademark.

The company reported outstanding results, with data center revenue doubling. BofA Securities said this:

Solid beat and raise with calendar 2021 sales growth now 50% year-over-year (vs. 37% prior); We reiterate our buy rating and raise the price objective with a path to long-term earnings-per-share of $4+. Like: improving supply; product cycles (Milan, Ryzen 5000, consoles, Radeon 6000); 1.3% to 4% of market share gains in first quarter 2021 estimated. Risks: tough PC compares post double-digit growth in 2020/21 estimated; growing competition from Intel (new CEO) and Arm based CPUs.

BofA Securities raised its $100 price target to $110. The Wall Street consensus target price is $104.92. The final Advanced Micro Devices stock trade for Monday came in at $74.65 a share.