Baird: Meltdown CPU Vulnerability Could Boost AMD

New product momentum and anticipated market share gains in both PCs and servers provides strong medium-term catalysts for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD), according to Baird. 

The Analyst

Tristan Gerra of Baird reiterated an Outperform rating on AMD with a $20 price target.

The Thesis

AMD’s CPU market share is expected to reach 12 percent in the first-quarter versus 8 percent in the same period last year, Gerra said in a Monday note. (See the analyst’s track record here.) 

AMD’s Ryzen-brand CPUs could continue their momentum into Q1, as they are expected to ramp in gaming notebooks from HP, Dell and Lenovo, the analyst said.

The company also stands to benefit from Meltdown vulnerability in Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) processors, Gerra said. 

“There is emerging ODM feedback that the Meltdown vulnerability could help AMD gain market share in the high-end enterprise PC market, as Intel's patches negatively impact performance, notably for certain high workload tasks.”

Price Action

At the time of publication, shares of AMD were trading up 1.9 percent at $11.52.

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Photo courtesy of AMD.