Having cooled considerably after a strong first half of the year, shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ: AMD) are once again doing what they love best: rallying. The stock is up about 40% since the last week of October and has all but undone the recent slide that had taken the shine off what was otherwise shaping up to be a stellar year.
Like most of the other names in the industry, AMD has been on the receiving end of both hype and concerns around the broader semiconductor industry and the now intertwined AI side of it. This can be both good and bad for investors, depending on your investment time horizon. For example, the long-term believers in the AI industry and the bullish exposure AMD has to it will be happy to snap up shares during any dip. But the more short-term focused investors are at the mercy of any blip in the company's, or the industry's, growth potential.
However, with shares after popping 10% during Thursday's session, they're on track to close out their best week in a while, and things are looking good. Here are three reasons to consider getting involved before the end of the year.
AI tailwinds
The first of these is AI and AMD's favorable exposure to the seemingly unending hype around its potential. Yesterday saw the company host its long-awaited Advancing AI event, which focused on AI and the launch of its new MI300 data center GPU. Considering the buying momentum in shares in the weeks leading up to the event, it didn't disappoint.
The initial reaction was all very positive, with the new data center GPU seen as a pivotal step in AMD's ability to more closely compete against the likes of NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA), who has been by far the strongest performer of all AI-related stocks this year.
But yesterday's event showed that AMD is now just as well positioned to capitalize on the industry's ongoing growth. Beyond highlighting AMD's strengthening position, other key takeaways were the strategic customer partnerships it's making and the depth of its roadmap. Despite the challenges of competing with a company of NVIDIA's size, AMD's open-source approach is expected to be a key differentiator. Case in point, already there are reports that both Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) have said they'll be open to buying AMD's new AI chips as an alternative to NVIDIA's.
Bullish comments
In the wake of the event, there was a run of bullish comments and upgrades from some heavyweight analysts. Citi, for example took the opportunity to reiterate its Buy rating on the stock and its $136 price target. Were shares to hit this in the coming weeks, it would put them above June's high and confirm that the next stage of the rally had started.
Raymond James, like Citi, reiterated their rating of a Strong Buy but boosted their price target up to $140. They were impressed by the reaction from Meta and saw this as a key step in AMD's pursuit of NVIDIA's market share.
Remarkably, having fallen almost 70% from their 2021 high, a move up to $140 would put AMD shares back within 15% of a new record. With the current tailwinds and bullish comments coming out in their favor, we're inclined to think this is the most likely scenario for the stock heading into 2024.
Technically strong
This ties in with the final reason to be bullishly weighing up an entry, and that's the technical setup. With the stock having bounced hard from a double low around the $95 mark, there's no doubt that we're in the midst of a fresh rally kicking off, with a ton of momentum likely taking it to fresh highs in the coming weeks.
In many ways, this will be a continuation of the rally that started back in October of last year, with the post-summer slump set to look more and more like a temporary bump. The stock's relative strength index is only at 67. Considering it needs to be well above 70 to be considered extremely overbought, there's a ton of room left for it to run before it could be called frothy.
