Investing.com – Advanced Micro Devices rallied Tuesday, lifting chip stocks overall, as Morgan Stanley talked up the chip maker's prospects after it won part of Google's upcoming cloud-gaming offering.
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) surged more than 6% as Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said the chip maker has a "significant opportunity" to benefit from the uptick in demand from cloud gaming chips.
Moore said he was "surprised" that AMD was able to play its way into securing a part of Google's upcoming cloud-based gaming services as the chip maker's graphics technology is not as cutting edge compared to those of its rivals, including NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA). (NVIDIA shares were up more than 4% today.)
"We continue to be impressed by AMD’s progress at using innovative approaches to expand its markets in all segments," Moore added.
The upbeat outlook on AMD comes as Google is expected to announce a new streaming, cloud-based gaming service during a keynote presentation at 1 pm ET today, at the 2019 Game Developers Conference, which got underway on Monday in San Francisco.
In the run-up to the Game Developers Conference, Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has made little secret of its ambitious goals in gaming, promising to unveil a "vision for the future of gaming."
But Moore was reluctant to upgrade his outlook on AMD's stock, which has gotten "ahead of itself." The shares were up 26% year-to-date through Monday. If today's gains hold, the gain would jump to 34%.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has racked up gains of more than 20% since the turn of the year, topping the S&P 500's nearly 14% advance. But all eyes will be on Micron Technology's earnings, which will serve as a gauge of whether the broader rally in semis is too hot too soon or at its infancy.
Some analysts on Wall Street have turned bearish on Micron (NASDAQ:MU) ahead of its quarterly report due Wednesday after markets close.
Rosenblatt Securities said the chipmaker still faces "challenging" conditions for its memory chips. The firm cut its earnings and revenue expectations for AMD both for the second quarter and full-year of 2019 and 2020.
Micron is expected to report earnings of $1.66 a share on revenue of $5.86 billion, according to analysts polled by Investing.com, down from $2.82 a share and $7.35 billion in revenue a year ago.