Long-term believers in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) are probably finding it increasingly hard to maintain their level of enthusiasm and support of the company as the stock burns a hole in their pocket.
Yesterday Advanced Micro Devices stock went as low as $3.88 in pre-noon trading. Te dip marked AMD’s lowest trade price over the last three years. The stock managed to claw up and reach $3.90 at the end of trading. The drop furthers AMD’s YTD deficit that is already as high as 25%.
The dilemma of dealing with AMD stock on your hands is a tough one. Supporters of Intel’s weakening rival have to decide just how much money they can afford to lose in their steadfast belief of an upsurge. As AMD are about to launch their new Piledriver chip in roughly a month’s time, everyone is hoping that it will deliver truly exceptional per-core performance. Failure to deliver will mean that CEO Rory Read’s company will remain almost two full years behind Intel in terms of speed for one more year, as the Steamroller chips will come out in late 2013 at the earliest.
AMD is frowning at its own future in quarterly reports, lowering forecasts and predicting a shrink in the 1-4% range for Q3 of 2012. Their latest 10-Q listed revenue that has gone down $172 million compared to the previous quarter.
Curiously, AMD’s three-year lowest trading price happened on Aug 24, 2009 and mirrored yesterday’s low of $3.88. Shareholders can only hope that history will repeat itself and the company will start picking up from here to go back to its early 2012 price, because even that would equal over a billion of solid profit in their wallets.
