AMD Avoids Plunging Cryptocurrency Prices, Stock Leaps 14% – AMD避免股价暴跌,股票跳跃14%

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Aaron Pressman

April 26, 2018

Aaron Pressman 2018年4月26日

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su has successfully executed on her multi-year strategy to overhaul the chipmaker’s entire product line and create an array of modern, higher-performance PC and graphics processors. But after pulling AMD’s stock out of the dregs—it was trading under $2 a share in early 2016—and proving the company could stay in business, Su has since struggled to convince Wall Street that she can turn the compelling products into compelling profit gains.

But with AMD’s first quarter report issued on Wednesday, not only sales exceeded expectations, with a 40% jump to $1.65 billion. AMD also showed a four percentage point improvement in its gross margin, to 36%, and operating income of $120 million up from just $11 million a year ago. Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy called it a “blowout” and credited the growing popularity of AMD’s new Ryzen CPU chips.

AMD’s progress selling its newest chips could finally signal a turning point, or “product inflection,” noted analyst Stacy Rasgon at Bernstein Research. “For the first time since this product cycle kicked off AMD may have given investors at least some reason to dream,” he wrote.

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AMD’s stock, which has been on a rollercoaster this year, jumped 14% on Thursday in midday trading to $11.08. That’s still well down from the 10-year high of $15.65 hit last July, but 16% higher than the price just two weeks ago.

That’s likely because part of Su’s struggle with Wall Street has nothing to do with AMD’s (amd) own strategy, or even the competition from Intel (intc) and Nvidia (nvda). Instead, a major concern revolves around just how much buying demand for AMD graphics cards is coming from digital currency mining operations and how volatile that demand might be as prices of the currencies decline.

Last year, when the prices of various digital currencies such as Ethereum skyrocketed, the computer mining activity that runs on graphics chips like AMD’s new Vega line skyrocketed, too. Now that cryptocurrency prices have retreated somewhat—Ethereum’s is less than half what it was in early January—analysts predict mining activity will wane. Last time that happened, back in 2014, it flooded the market with used graphics cards killing sales at AMD and its competitors.

Su says this time is different, always a tricky argument to make on Wall Street where “this time” is almost never different. But Su offered two propositions to back her theory, adding that AMD has been in touch with major commercial currency mining operations to hear about their plans.

First, unlike 2014 when miners all focused on bitcoin, now there are dozens of major cryptocurrencies. Instead of giving up mining altogether and selling their gear “what we’ve seen is that people who are mining do go from one currency to another depending on what’s happening,” Su said on a call with analysts Wednesday afternoon. The other factor is that some part-time miners buy high-end graphics cards for multiple uses. “We see that there is good demand for, not just blockchain, but for gaming, for the cloud and for those things as well,” Su explained.

Most analysts aren’t sure Su has it right, but booming sales of the various new products, including the Epyc chip for servers, could make a decline in crypto-driven sales irrelevent. In February, AMD unveiled chips which combine its Ryzen CPU with its high-end Vega graphics processor instead of the usual low performers. And last week, the company rolled out its second generation of Ryzen CPUs with better performance for desktop computers.

“We anticipate improving demand and selling prices for AMD’s graphics chips, driven by new Radeon products, and are encouraged by penetration for its Ryzen processors,” analyst Angelo Zino of CFRA Research wrote. “While we see lower blockchain revenue ahead (10% of sales) given industry dynamics, we think investors are underestimating share gain potential of its EPYC server.”

AMD’s forecast for a 50% revenue increase in the second quarter and “mid-20s percent” for all of 2018 incorporated a modest decline in graphics chip demand from miners, CFO Devinder Kumar told analysts. Mining demand accounted for about 10% of such sales in the first quarter, he said.

“There may still be a bit of risk if their estimate of exposure (which at several hundred million dollars feels a little light) is wrong,” writes Bernstein analyst Rasgon.

高级微设备公司首席执行官Lisa Su已经成功地执行在她多年的战略改革chipmaker’s的整个产品线,打造现代阵列,高性能的PC处理器和图形处理器。但在拉amd’s股票出渣是交易在2美元每股的2016年初,证明公司可以经营下去,苏已经努力说服华尔街,她可以把产品转化为引人注目的利润收益。但amd’s第一季度报告在星期三发布,不仅销售超出预期,与40%跳升到16亿5000万美元。AMD也显示,其毛利率提高到36%,14个百分点,与1亿2000万美元营业收入从一年前的1100万美元。分析师Patrick Moorhead Moor Insights & amp;策略称之为“blowout”并记入amd’s新ryzen CPU芯片的日益普及。amd’s进步销售其最新芯片的最终信号的一个转折点,或“product拐点,”著名分析师Stacy Rasgon伯恩斯坦研究。“for因为产品周期拉开帷幕,AMD第一次可能给投资者至少有理由去梦想,”他写道。得到的数据表,fortune’s技术通讯。amd’s股票,已经在今年的过山车,上星期四午盘上涨14%至11.08美元。that’s仍远低于15.65美元的10年新高去年七月,但高于16%就在两周前的价格。that’s可能因为su’s斗争与华尔街无关amd’s(AMD)的策略,甚至英特尔的竞争(INTC)和Nvidia(NVDA)。相反,一个主要关注的问题是围绕多少购买需求的AMD显卡是来自数字货币的采矿作业,需求可能作为货币价格如何波动下降。去年,当各种数字货币如伊斯利恩价格暴涨,运行在图形芯片amd’s新Vega线暴涨电脑采矿活动,太。现在,cryptocurrency价格下跌了somewhat-ethereum’s小于一半它是早在一月分析师预测矿业活动将减弱。最后一次发生了,在2014回,它充斥市场,用显卡在AMD和其竞争对手造成销售。苏说,这一次是不同的,总是一个棘手的争论在华尔街那里“this time”几乎从来没有不同。但苏提供了两个命题支持她的理论,补充说,AMD已经与主要商业货币采矿业务联系听到他们的计划。首先,不同于当工人都集中在比特币2014,现在有几十个主要cryptocurrencies。而不是放弃挖掘共销售齿轮“what we’ve看到的是人去挖掘做为另一种货币,取决于what’s发生,”苏说,在与分析师的电话星期三下午。另一个因素是,一些兼职矿工多采用购买高端显卡。“we看到有好的需求,不只是blockchain,但游戏的云,那些事情,”苏解释。多数分析师aren’t肯定苏是正确的,但销售火爆的各种新产品,包括服务器epyc芯片,可以在加密驱动销售不下降。二月,AMD公布了其ryzen CPU芯片的高端维嘉图形处理器而不是通常的低绩效相结合。上周,该公司推出了它的第二代Ryzen CPUs与台式电脑的性能更好。“we预期改善的需求和销售价格的amd’s图形芯片,采用新的Radeon产品驱动,并鼓励其通过渗透ryzen处理器,”分析师Angelo Zino将研究写。我们看到低收入“while blockchain之前(销售额的10%)给定的行业动态,我们认为投资者低估了每股收益潜力的epyc server.” amd’s为50%第二季度收入和“增长预测二十几岁percent”所有2018注册在图形芯片的需求从矿工小幅下跌,首席财务官Devinder Kumar告诉分析师。挖掘需求约占10%,这样的销售在第一季度,他说。“there仍然可能估计曝光有点危险(这在数亿美元,感觉有点轻)是错误的,”写伯恩斯坦分析师Rasgon。

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AMD Avoids Plunging Cryptocurrency Prices, Stock Leaps 14% - AMD避免股价暴跌,股票跳跃14%

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