AMD's stock slides after Intel earnings reveal two big issues

By Emily Bary and Hannah Pedone

Intel is struggling to make enough AI server chips and dealing with a weak PC market. Investors will soon find out the degree to which AMD may be suffering from the same problems.

AMD reports earnings on Tuesday and will offer its own read on the PC and server markets.

Advanced Micro Devices shares are getting caught up in the intense market reaction to Intel's earnings.

Intel (INTC) is experiencing twin pressures within its business. Sales of personal computers are weakening due to inflated memory-chip prices, and the company isn't able to make enough server chips to satisfy robust demand for central processing units.

Since AMD (AMD), like Intel, makes CPUs for both PCs and data centers, the question for AMD investors concerns the degree to which Intel's issues are related to industrywide dynamics versus company-specific missteps.

See also: Why Intel's stock is sinking toward its worst day in two years - and a $128 billion wipeout

Shares of AMD closed down 11% on Friday, while Intel's stock closed down 29%.

AMD is due to post its own earnings on Tuesday afternoon.

The troubles in the PC market likely extend beyond Intel. Even before Intel's report, third-party estimates indicated industrywide PC shipments were down by some 20% in the third quarter relative to the same period a year earlier. That marked an escalation from the mid-single-digit decline seen in the second quarter, Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a preview of both AMD's and Intel's earnings.

Following Intel's report, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst C.J. Muse wrote that a "decline in the PC market is not a surprise," given high memory prices, but the extent of Intel's declines proved "a meaningful surprise." The company's results implied a 45% drop in unit sales relative to a year earlier, he said.

The "gloomy comments on the PC market for the rest of 2026 and 2027 will likely weigh on any company with PC exposure, such as AMD," Morningstar analyst Brian Colello told MarketWatch.

Intel's management team noted that while elevated memory prices are crimping PC demand, another issue is that corporate information-technology teams now face more limited budgets for equipment purchases.

That said, PCs are a bigger deal for Intel than they are for AMD. StoneX analyst Cody Acree told MarketWatch that AMD could generate less than a quarter of its sales this year from PCs, while Intel's client group, which includes PC chips, is expected to account for more than half of revenue.

That means Intel is "much more exposed, but AMD is exposed none the less," he said.

Meanwhile, some of Intel's problems in server chips might relate to its own poor execution. In particular, the company seems to have misjudged the respective demand outlooks for the PC and server businesses, leaving it with too much production capacity for PC chips, all while it can't meet the booming server demand.

Chip companies across the board can't satisfy all the demand for artificial-intelligence chips, but the issues might be especially pronounced at Intel. Cantor Fitzgerald's Muse noted Intel's "clear loss of share to AMD in servers."

Another thing AMD has working in its favor, according to BofA analyst Vivek Arya, is that the company also sells graphics processing units for AI. The ramp of its Helios rack-scale offering could be a "strong positive offset," he noted.

StoneX's Acree said in a note to clients that "Intel's PC warning, and the likely AMD stock pressure, could lower expectations before Tuesday, creating room for AMD's smaller client exposure and data-center ramp to produce a better relative outcome."

-Emily Bary -Hannah Pedone

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10-30-26 1628ET