• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
Tech

Why AMD’s Stock Plunged 20% in Less Than a Week

By
Aaron Pressman
Aaron Pressman
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Aaron Pressman
Aaron Pressman
Down Arrow Button Icon
October 30, 2017, 11:14 AM ET

Advanced Micro Devices has spent 2017 rolling out its new family of Ryzen chips for desktops and laptops, Epyc chips for servers, and Vega graphics cards. The fruits of several years of crash development under CEO Lisa Su, the new chips were supposed to get AMD back in the game against Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA) and regain some of its once significant market share that had been frittered away over the past decade.

But with basically all the new products now on the market, AMD’s stock price on Monday sunk as low as $11.07, below where it ended 2016 at $11.34. Monday’s plunge capped a four day, 20% drop since AMD (AMD) reported third quarter earnings on October 24, failing to show the kind of sales growth that Wall Street had expected would be more obvious by now. Over the same period, Intel has gained 9% on the strength of its third quarter earnings while Nvidia, which doesn’t report earnings until November 9, is up 3%.

The problem, at least so far, seems to be slower sales to video game enthusiasts, as the Ryzen desktop chips lagged some of Intel’s fastest silicon for popular games and the Vega graphics architecture was costly to produce, blunting AMD’s ability to compete on price with Nvidia’s graphics cards.

“While Ryzen did meet the performance benchmarks that AMD claimed, making it a solid choice for workstations using highly threaded applications, the single threaded gaming performance has underwhelmed,” Morgan Stanley analyst Joe Moore wrote in a report on Monday downgrading the stock to “underweight” with an $8 price target.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

“Building a chip that outperforms Intel for highly threaded applications on a budget that is a fraction’s of Intel is certainly an impressive engineering achievement, but most high-end consumer purchases are oriented towards gaming, while applications that value higher multicore performance tend to be in corporate markets that are slower to adopt AMD,” Moore explained.

AMD’s third quarter sales grew 26% to $1.6 billion and the company reported net income of $71 million—its first real profits since 2014. AMD did not, however, raise its forecast for fourth quarter sales and profit as much as some investors hoped, igniting the recent sell-off.

Still, one of AMD’s most potent new products, chips for laptops that combine Ryzen and Vega designs, have only just been announced. A few laptop makers have announced they will use the combo chips this year, but the bulk of manufacturers won’t until early 2018.

(Update: This story was updated on October 31 to correct that AMD third quarter sales totaled $1.6 billion.)

About the Author
By Aaron Pressman
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Current price of Ethereum for May 6, 2026
Personal FinanceEthereum
Current price of Ethereum for May 6, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 6, 2026
39 minutes ago
mckinsey
CommentaryProductivity
The U.S. leads in 14 of 18 industries shaping the future economy — but the lead isn’t guaranteed
By Kevin Russell, Chris Bradley and Kweilin EllingrudMay 6, 2026
55 minutes ago
Jensen
AISoftware
Jensen Huang on why ‘agentic’ will rewire a $50 trillion economy: ‘operated by robots, managed by more robots, and the entire factory is a robot’
By Nick LichtenbergMay 6, 2026
1 hour ago
burke
ConferencesAthletic Gear
The CEO of Trek Bicycle reads 52 books a year, hates smartphones, and thinks Milton Friedman was wrong
By Nick LichtenbergMay 6, 2026
2 hours ago
District, founded by three Snapchat alumni, raises a $14.7 million seed round to help independent sellers build community-driven marketplaces
NewslettersTerm Sheet
District, founded by three Snapchat alumni, raises a $14.7 million seed round to help independent sellers build community-driven marketplaces
By Allie GarfinkleMay 6, 2026
2 hours ago
EQ
CommentaryPsychology
EQ training is failing leaders in the AI era. Here’s the brain science concept that can replace it
By David RockMay 6, 2026
2 hours ago

Most Popular

Clean energy's winning argument is the one it refuses to make
Commentary
Clean energy's winning argument is the one it refuses to make
By David CraneMay 5, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of oil as of May 5, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 5, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 5, 2026
1 day ago
Gen Z workers say showing up 10 minutes late to work is as good as on time—but baby boomer bosses have zero tolerance for tardiness, research reveals
Success
Gen Z workers say showing up 10 minutes late to work is as good as on time—but baby boomer bosses have zero tolerance for tardiness, research reveals
By Orianna Rosa RoyleMay 5, 2026
1 day ago
Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: avoid retiring early, study finds
Economy
Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: avoid retiring early, study finds
By Sasha RogelbergMay 5, 2026
21 hours ago
Tokyo is throwing out its strict office dress code and asking workers to wear shorts amid the war in Iran energy crisis
Success
Tokyo is throwing out its strict office dress code and asking workers to wear shorts amid the war in Iran energy crisis
By Emma BurleighMay 5, 2026
21 hours ago
Coinbase didn't just lay off 14% of its staff due to AI. It replaced managers with ‘player-coaches’ and turned its org chart upside down
Crypto
Coinbase didn't just lay off 14% of its staff due to AI. It replaced managers with ‘player-coaches’ and turned its org chart upside down
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezMay 5, 2026
21 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.