Wall Street is concerned about AMD’s profitability despite its high spending. Here’s a roundup of worries
Analysts across Wall Street remained largely neutral on Advanced Micro Devices despite its latest earnings beat , citing brewing concerns around the chipmaker’s overall profitability. In its fourth quarter, AMD reported earnings of $1.53 per share, exceeding the $1.32 analysts polled by LSEG had penciled in. The firm’s $10.27 billion revenue also came in above the expected $9.67 billion. AMD also guided for first-quarter revenue of $9.8 billion, plus or minus $300 million. Again, this was above the $9.38 billion consensus estimate. Still, shares of AMD plummeted 9% in Wednesday’s premarket session as analysts expressed worries that the company does not have enough to show for its high spending, as its outsized operating expenditures, or opex, have continued to weigh down profitability. JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur pointed out that AMD’s operating expense was $200 million higher than guidance, marking several quarters of the company “overshooting expenses.” “Though Mar-Qtr guidance was also better than expected, the extent to which AMD is able to generate operating leverage remains in question and likely represents an overhang on the stock until this can be satisfactorily demonstrated (most likely 2H26), especially in light of risk to gross margins with the upcoming ramp of MI450/Helios later this year,” Sur wrote. “The opex ramp is starting to become a bit tiresome (we get the need for spending but execution against spending guidance has been lackluster…),” Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon added. Goldman Sachs analyst James Schneider also called out AMD’s higher-than-expected opex guidance. “We expect the stock to trade down following a strong revenue quarter and guidance driven by upside in the Datacenter segment, offset by significantly higher-than-expected OpEx guidance,” he wrote. However, UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri, who remains one of the most bullish on the Street, believes that investors may be blowing their concerns way out of proportion. “Sustained periods of beat/raises on EPS have been hard to come by — in part due to all the moving parts and in part because opex tends to always surprise to the upside. We are sympathetic to this complaint, but fundamentals for the segments that really drive the narrative (CPU/GPU) are headed in a positive direction and we see a clear path to > $11 of EPS in C2027 and > $15 of EPS in 2028,” he wrote. Meanwhile, analysts such as Citi’s Atif Malik also pointed out that AMD’s results were boosted by $390 million of unexpected China sales . Susquehanna’s Chris Rolland told CNBC’s ” Closing Bell: Overtime ” that when this unexpected China revenue is accounted for, “the beat was far less substantial than we would’ve thought.” Citi’s Malik and Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Seymore added that investors may have also been disappointed by a smaller earnings beat than they’d otherwise hoped for. Analysts pointed out that investors may have also been frustrated by AMD’s lack of new customer announcements. And the stock’s lofty valuation doesn’t help its case, especially when peers such as Broadcom and Nvidia have seen recent multiple compression, Morgan Stanley’s Joseph Moore added. “We suppose it remains a waiting game (at 35x, the most expensive of the AI names). We don’t hate it, but would rather play elsewhere,” wrote Bernstein’s Rasgon. Bottom line, most analysts maintained their long-term neutral stance on shares of AMD. Here’s what some of Wall Street’s biggest shops had to say on the report. Goldman Sachs: neutral rating, $210 price target The bank’s target implies about 13% downside from AMD’s Tuesday closing price of $242.11. “We expect the company will continue to see solid momentum in its Datacenter business over the course of 2026 driven by server market share gains and the ramp of its MI400 series products, but we see limited near-term operating leverage given AMD’s significant software and systems investments tied to its AI infrastructure ramp. We remain Neutral on the stock given limited near-term operating leverage as well as likely high customer concentration for AMD’s GPU datacenter business.” Bernstein: market-perform, $235 price target Bernstein’s forecast, up from $225, offers downside of 3%. “However, it seems a bit of a kerfuffle that in such an intense environment, overall results weren’t all that much beyond ‘inline’ without the China boost. On the positive, server trends admittedly appear very solid, and client share gains continue. On the other hand near-term AI numbers are not really inflecting (outside of China that no one really wants to pay for) and the pace and trajectory of the OpenAI ramp remains a bit up for debate (at a minimum it clearly seems increasingly likely to be a Q4 volume game), and client headwinds may materialize into the 2H (alongside console headwinds that are happening now).” Deutsche Bank: hold, $250 Deutsche Bank’s target corresponds to upside of around 3%. “From a short-term perspective, investors are likely to be disappointed from the outsized impact of China GPU revenues and the smaller-than-hoped-for ‘beat’ otherwise. However, over the longer-term, AMD continues to believe that 2H26 will be the inflection point for its Instinct business, as the MI450 ramps start in 3Q26 and become much more significant in 4Q26.” Morgan Stanley: equal-weight, $255 Morgan Stanley’s target calls for 5% upside going forward. “We were surprised at aftermarket weakness, as the numbers were quite good and AMD said the right stuff about the new products; that said, rack scale/mi455 remains something of a show-me story for the stock to move higher.” Citi: neutral, $260 Citi’s forecast is 7% above AMD’s current valuation. “AMD stock is down -8% after hours as upside to 4Q25 results was boosted by $390 million of unexpected China sales. While AMD guided 1Q26 above Consensus, we believe the buyside was expecting more upside (based on our investor discussions). We think the stock remains in a ‘wait and see’ mode until the release of the MI450 in 2H26 which carries execution, competitive, and customer concentration risks, in our view.” JPMorgan: neutral, $270 JPMorgan’s price target represents upside of 12%. “Dec-Qtr revenue came in solidly ahead of Street and buy-side expectations, but was helped by almost $400MM of unexpected MI308 revenue, and though adjusted gross margin (ex-shipments of previously reserved inventory) was slightly better than expected (+50 bps vs. Street), this was more than offset by operating expense that was ~ $200MM higher than guidance (a ~200 bps OpM headwind), marking several quarters of AMD overshooting expenses … We remain on the sidelines though as the stock appears fully valued to us at these levels, and we are cognizant of the execution risks that lie ahead for AMD as it ramps its first rack-scale AI system.” Barclays: overweight, $300 The firm’s forecast implies AMD stock could rise 24% from here. “Server CPU the highlight with more conservative tones on Client through the year … Net-net, the server story remains appealing with an AI kicker when that business hits another stride.” UBS: buy, $310 UBS’ target, lowered from $330, equates to 36% upside. “Although the next window for big beats and raises is probably not until more toward the end of the year with MI455x ramping significantly in CQ4, these sorts of EPS numbers should be enough to carry the stock higher and we do sense that the company will finally show some big operating/EPS leverage in C2027/2028. Net, our revenue and EPS for C2026/2027/2028 change only minimally and we maintain the Buy, but we are trimming out PT from $330 to $310 in recognition of ongoing multiple compression occurring among AMD’s frontline AI peers like NVDA and AVGO.”
<
