Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) Lowered to Sell Rating by DZ Bank

Key Points

• Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) has been downgraded by DZ Bank from a "buy" to a "sell" rating, with a price target of $150.00, indicating a potential downside of 15.46% from its previous close.
• The company reported earnings of $0.96 per share for the last quarter, surpassing estimates, and recorded a revenue of $7.44 billion, a 35.9% increase year-over-year.
• Advanced Micro Devices has also approved a share repurchase program allowing up to $6.00 billion worth of stock to be repurchased, a sign that the board believes the stock is undervalued.

DZ Bank downgraded shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD - Free Report) from a buy rating to a sell rating in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has $150.00 target price on the semiconductor manufacturer's stock.

A number of other analysts also recently commented on the company. KeyCorp downgraded Advanced Micro Devices from an "overweight" rating to a "sector weight" rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Citigroup upped their price objective on Advanced Micro Devices from $145.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, July 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Advanced Micro Devices to a "hold" rating and set a $140.00 price objective for the company in a report on Thursday, July 10th. Benchmark restated a "buy" rating and set a $170.00 price objective on shares of Advanced Micro Devices in a report on Friday, June 13th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Advanced Micro Devices from $120.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Advanced Micro Devices has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $162.94.

Advanced Micro Devices Price Performance

AMD stock traded up $2.07 on Wednesday, reaching $179.51. The company had a trading volume of 63,549,276 shares, compared to its average volume of 49,722,936. Advanced Micro Devices has a 1 year low of $76.48 and a 1 year high of $182.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a current ratio of 2.80. The company's fifty day moving average is $136.04 and its 200 day moving average is $115.69. The company has a market cap of $291.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 131.99, a PEG ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 2.05.

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $0.96 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.93 by $0.03. Advanced Micro Devices had a return on equity of 8.30% and a net margin of 8.03%. The company had revenue of $7.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.62 EPS. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 35.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Advanced Micro Devices will post 3.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Advanced Micro Devices announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, May 14th that allows the company to buyback $6.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the semiconductor manufacturer to purchase up to 3.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically a sign that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Advanced Micro Devices

In other news, EVP Mark D. Papermaster sold 17,998 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.03, for a total transaction of $2,790,229.94. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 1,713,710 shares in the company, valued at $265,676,461.30. This trade represents a 1.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.06% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Advanced Micro Devices

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Toronto Dominion Bank lifted its position in shares of Advanced Micro Devices by 443.3% during the fourth quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 5,467,956 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock worth $660,475,000 after purchasing an additional 4,461,609 shares during the last quarter. Nicolet Bankshares Inc. lifted its position in shares of Advanced Micro Devices by 56.4% during the fourth quarter. Nicolet Bankshares Inc. now owns 3,523 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock worth $426,000 after purchasing an additional 1,271 shares during the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG lifted its position in shares of Advanced Micro Devices by 12.7% during the fourth quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 264,574 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock worth $31,958,000 after purchasing an additional 29,825 shares during the last quarter. Heritage Trust Co bought a new position in shares of Advanced Micro Devices during the fourth quarter worth about $804,000. Finally, Valicenti Advisory Services Inc. lifted its holdings in Advanced Micro Devices by 4.0% in the first quarter. Valicenti Advisory Services Inc. now owns 76,826 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock worth $7,893,000 after acquiring an additional 2,944 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.34% of the company's stock.

About Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc operates as a semiconductor company worldwide. It operates through Data Center, Client, Gaming, and Embedded segments. The company offers x86 microprocessors and graphics processing units (GPUs) as an accelerated processing unit, chipsets, data center, and professional GPUs; and embedded processors, and semi-custom system-on-chip (SoC) products, microprocessor and SoC development services and technology, data processing unites, field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), and adaptive SoC products.