AMD shares soar on no company news. Here’s what has investors excited
Intel’s The latest earnings report showed huge demand for central processing units, or CPUs, as companies rush to develop AI capabilities, causing their stocks to soar. The numbers have led investors to scoop up shares of another major chip maker: Advanced Micro Devices.
AMD shares rose more than 12% on Friday as Wall Street analysts were caught off guard by Intel’s CPU performance; They believe this will trickle down to other major CPU manufacturers as well.
“We thought CPUs would be the next big bottleneck, but Intel’s results show that this has already turned into a very significant upside,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria wrote in a note on Friday. “The CPU is reintroducing itself as an essential foundation of the AI era, and the once-sleepy CPU market has been energized as agency workloads expand their computing needs beyond the graphics processing units produced by companies like Nvidia.”
Luria upgraded AMD from neutral to buy, boosting 2026 revenue and gross margin. He also raised his price target on the stock to $375; This represents a 22% increase from Thursday’s close.
AMD year to date
This is also due to Intel issuing stronger-than-expected guidance for the second quarter. Other analysts on the Street also noticed the CPU increase.
“Intel expects double-digit server CPU unit growth in 2026, compared to expectations of only mild growth six months ago,” Citi analyst Atif Malik wrote on Friday. He upgraded Intel shares to buy from neutral.
Wall Street sees CPU makers and data center hardware providers improving as a group with AMD front and center on Intel news.
“Based on signs of better engagement in higher AI infrastructure growth, we are significantly increasing our price target to bring INTC’s target multiple in line with the company’s AI infrastructure peers AMD, MRVL, CRDO, and ALAB (all rated Buy),” Roth’s Suji Desilva wrote on Friday.
Meanwhile, Barclays’ Tom O’Malley wondered whether Intel would lose market share as a rival to AMD.
“Our $40 downside is based on 47 times our CY27 PF EPS of $0.85, implying further share losses for AMD,” he wrote, citing other factors as well. Intel traded around $81 early Friday.
