Morgan Stanley Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) Stock Price

Key Points

• Morgan Stanley cut its price target for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from $185.00 to $168.00, indicating a potential downside of 3.62% from the current stock price.
• Despite the downgrade, AMD's stock has shown resilience, with other analysts like Wedbush issuing an "outperform" rating and a higher price target of $120.00.
• The company reported $0.48 earnings per share in its latest quarterly earnings, missing expectations and demonstrating a 31.7% revenue increase compared to the same quarter last year.

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD - Get Free Report) had its price objective reduced by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $185.00 to $168.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an "equal weight" rating on the semiconductor manufacturer's stock. Morgan Stanley's price objective indicates a potential upside of 2.99% from the stock's current price.

AMD has been the subject of a number of other reports. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Advanced Micro Devices to a "hold" rating and set a $140.00 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. Roth Capital set a $150.00 price target on Advanced Micro Devices and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, June 13th. Barclays increased their price objective on Advanced Micro Devices from $110.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, May 16th. Melius Research raised Advanced Micro Devices from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating and upped their target price for the stock from $110.00 to $175.00 in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Advanced Micro Devices from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Monday, May 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $178.09.

Advanced Micro Devices Trading Down 6.4%

AMD stock traded down $11.19 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $163.12. 132,642,918 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 60,340,328. Advanced Micro Devices has a 52-week low of $76.48 and a 52-week high of $182.50. The stock's fifty day moving average is $142.11 and its 200-day moving average is $117.55. The company has a current ratio of 2.80, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The company has a market cap of $264.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 93.75, a P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 1.94.

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.54 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $7.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.41 billion. Advanced Micro Devices had a net margin of 9.57% and a return on equity of 7.61%. Advanced Micro Devices's quarterly revenue was up 31.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.69 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Advanced Micro Devices will post 3.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Advanced Micro Devices declared that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, May 14th that allows the company to buyback $6.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the semiconductor manufacturer to repurchase up to 3.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Advanced Micro Devices news, EVP Mark D. Papermaster sold 17,998 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.03, for a total transaction of $2,790,229.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 1,713,710 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $265,676,461.30. This trade represents a 1.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.06% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AMD. Toronto Dominion Bank grew its stake in shares of Advanced Micro Devices by 443.3% during the 4th quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 5,467,956 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock valued at $660,475,000 after purchasing an additional 4,461,609 shares during the period. Nicolet Bankshares Inc. raised its stake in Advanced Micro Devices by 56.4% during the 4th quarter. Nicolet Bankshares Inc. now owns 3,523 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock valued at $426,000 after purchasing an additional 1,271 shares during the period. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG boosted its holdings in shares of Advanced Micro Devices by 12.7% during the 4th quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 264,574 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock valued at $31,958,000 after purchasing an additional 29,825 shares during the last quarter. Heritage Trust Co bought a new position in Advanced Micro Devices during the fourth quarter valued at $804,000. Finally, Valicenti Advisory Services Inc. increased its position in shares of Advanced Micro Devices by 4.0% during the 1st quarter. Valicenti Advisory Services Inc. now owns 76,826 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer's stock valued at $7,893,000 after purchasing 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.