Benzinga - by Shanthi Rexaline, Benzinga Editor.
The tech rally seen during the fourth-quarter reporting season has pushed the bloated valuations of these stocks even higher. Amid the rally, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) CEO Lisa Su sold a chunk of the chipmaker’s stock, according to a Form 4 filed with the SEC on Friday.
What Happened: Su sold 125 million AMD shares in three tranches on Wednesday. Based on the per-share value of each tranche of shares, the sale would have fetched the CEO $20.42 million. The transaction price ranged from $162.77 to $164.24.
The sales were in accordance with the SEC Rule 10b5-1 trading plan Su adopted on Nov. 20, 2023. The rule offers corporate insiders a way to transact in company stock over a predefined period of time, provided the insider can establish that they were not aware of any material non-public information when the pre-existing plan was established.
Following the week’s disposals, Su is left with 3,195,360 shares of AMD through direct ownership. Indirectly, through trusts, she owns 593,216 shares.
Why It’s Important: AMD is considered a potential beneficiary of the current AI revolution. With Nvidia benefiting from its first-mover advantage with its AI accelerators, AMD and the others are expected to benefit from the second, third and fourth wave of the AI revolution.
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley said in a mid-January note that he sees AMD exiting 2024 with an AI revenue run-rate of $4 billion, which will likely increase to more than $7 billion in 2025.
“We think the ramp is driven by multiple customers across hyperscale and Enterprise and more 2H loaded,” he said.
Citing channel checks, the analyst said the AMD’s MI300 AI accelerator has received stronger feedback.
AMD reported in-line fourth-quarter results in late January, thanks to strong performance by its data center segment.
“Demand for our high-performance data center product portfolio continues to accelerate, positioning us well to deliver strong annual growth in what is an incredibly exciting time as AI re-shapes virtually every part of the computing market,” Su said then.
AMD shares have gained 19.75% for the year-to-date period, according to Benzinga Pro data. The spike comes on top of the nearly 128% rise in 2023.
Related Link: AMD Stock Slips After In-Line Q4: Lisa Su Touts ‘Exciting Time’ For Chipmaker Driven By AI
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