AMD Stock Bounces Back — Here’s What’s Driving the Move Today

TLDR

• AMD rose 1.9% in pre-market trading after William Blair initiated coverage with a Market Perform rating, projecting sales to double from $52B in 2026 to over $104B by 2028.
• Goldman Sachs raised its AMD price target to $640, continuing to support positive sentiment this week.
• AMD opened at $517.41 on Thursday; the stock has a 52-week range of $137.59 to $584.73.
• Q1 earnings beat expectations — $1.37 EPS vs $1.29 expected — with revenue of $10.25B, up 37.8% year-over-year.
• AMD set its Q2 2026 earnings date for August 4, giving investors a near-term catalyst to watch.

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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) stock climbed 1.9% in pre-market trading on Thursday, pushing toward $517.41 at the open, as fresh analyst coverage combined with a Goldman Sachs price target raise kept buyers engaged.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., AMD

William Blair kicked off coverage on AMD with a Market Perform rating. Analyst Sebastien Naji pointed to AMD’s position as a key beneficiary of the AI infrastructure buildout, estimating sales will grow from $52 billion in 2026 to over $104 billion by 2028.

The firm sees non-GAAP EPS hitting around $20 by 2028, driven by demand for GPUs, CPUs, and silicon tied to AI model deployment and inference workloads.

Goldman Sachs analyst James Schneider also lifted his price target on AMD to $640 earlier this week, a move that has continued to underpin the stock’s momentum heading into Thursday’s session.

The pre-market bounce follows a rough Tuesday, when AMD dropped after Reuters reported that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is developing its own inference-focused chip — a development that rattled the broader semiconductor sector.

AMD recovered Wednesday, trading at $518.47 after opening at $504.01, before extending gains into Thursday morning.

Q1 Results Beat, Q2 Date Confirmed

AMD’s most recent earnings gave investors something to feel good about. The company reported Q1 EPS of $1.37, beating the $1.29 consensus. Revenue came in at $10.25 billion, topping the $9.90 billion estimate and up 37.8% from the same quarter a year ago.

AMD officially confirmed it will report Q2 2026 results on August 4, after the market close. That gives traders a concrete near-term date to position around.

Analysts expect full-year EPS of $6.15 for fiscal 2026.

Institutional Buying Continues

Resona Asset Management added 11,724 AMD units in Q1, lifting its total stake to 514,346 worth roughly $103.9 million. Vanguard, State Street, and Geode Capital all increased their positions in Q4 as well.

Institutional investors now own 71.34% of AMD’s outstanding stock.

On the other side, insiders have been trimming. CEO Lisa Su sold 125,000 units on June 10 at an average of $460.69, totaling about $57.6 million. EVP Forrest Norrod also sold 19,487 units in May. Both sales were conducted under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans.

Analyst Ratings and Competitive Backdrop

Of 43 analysts tracked by MarketBeat, two rate AMD a Strong Buy, 28 say Buy, 12 say Hold, and one says Sell.

The average price target sits at $453.92, though several recent upgrades have pushed targets well above that figure. UBS has a $670 target, Wells Fargo is at $615, and Goldman is now at $640.

William Blair noted AMD’s GPU portfolio has lagged Nvidia, but said AMD has accelerated its product roadmap and differentiated through memory access, pricing, and open standards.

AMD stock dipped earlier in the week as Nvidia landed another customer for its Vera AI CPUs.

The broader market on Thursday offered a mixed backdrop, with the Nasdaq up 0.2%, the S&P 500 down 0.3%, and the Dow falling 1.1%.