AMD and Intel rise in premarket: why chip stocks are firming before Nvidia earnings

AMD and Intel stocks edged higher in Wednesday premarket trading as investors returned to semiconductor names ahead of Nvidia’s earnings report.

AMD gained 0.4% and Intel about 0.6%, while European chip stocks were mixed. The moves suggest investors are not indiscriminately buying semiconductors.

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya said “semiconductor demand remains solid,” although he warned that several near-term risks remain.

AMD stock has a catalyst beyond the Nvidia sympathy trade

AMD enters Wednesday with fresh analyst momentum after jumping 4.9% on Tuesday.

Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold upgraded the stock to Strong Buy from Outperform and lifted his price target to $641 from $565.

The firm believes AMD offers the “strongest combination of direct earnings leverage” because of its data-centre exposure and server CPU share gains, according to TipRanks.

Leopold expects the server CPU market to grow at a 44% annual rate and reach roughly $201 billion by 2030.

He sees demand coming from data centres, CPUs coordinating AI accelerators and processors supporting agentic-AI workloads.

That makes Nvidia’s results relevant to AMD without turning the setup into a winner-takes-all contest.

If Nvidia reports that hyperscalers are increasing infrastructure budgets, it would reinforce the idea that the AI-compute market is expanding. Those systems require CPUs, accelerators, networking and memory.

Intel stock is rising, but its turnaround still carries more risk

Intel’s premarket gain comes from a less straightforward investment case.

Unlike AMD, Intel does not have a fresh Strong Buy upgrade. Its story depends on server CPU demand, manufacturing execution and whether foundry investment eventually produces competitive scale and external customers.

BofA remains constructive after Intel’s roughly $20 billion equity offering.

Arya described the fundraising as “a good leading indicator” of management’s confidence in the foundry strategy. BofA kept a Buy rating but lowered its target to $145 from $160, reflecting dilution and peer valuations.

Leopold believes Intel should benefit from a larger server CPU market, but rates the shares Market Perform while assigning AMD a Strong Buy.

Nvidia earnings could decide whether Wednesday’s firmness survives

Nvidia’s results are the immediate test for both stocks.

FactSet expects fiscal second-quarter revenue of about $92.3 billion and adjusted earnings of $2.09 per share. But bullish analysts are already modelling stronger numbers for the following quarter.

UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri believes October-quarter revenue could exceed $110 billion as Blackwell demand remains robust and Rubin begins contributing.

The earnings call may prove equally important.

JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur told MarketWatch that investors will listen closely for Nvidia’s views on custom AI silicon, emerging competitors, China, high-bandwidth memory supply and its full-stack advantage.

If Nvidia confirms hyperscalers are maintaining or increasing AI budgets, demand expectations for GPUs, server CPUs, networking, memory and semiconductor manufacturing could strengthen.

Any sign of slower deployments or selective spending could reverse Wednesday’s optimism quickly.