Analysts reboot AMD stock price target ahead of earnings

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Batten down the hatches, people, the market is heading straight into some wild weather.

First, we have the Federal Reserve, which starts a two-day meeting on Tuesday, April 30. It is expected on Wednesday to keep its key federal funds rate at 5.25% to 5.5%, the level it has stayed at since last July and the reason all interest rates remain high.

Related: Analyst revamps Apple stock rating ahead of key earnings report

In addition, the April jobs report comes out Friday and is expected to show unemployment holding at 3.8% and payroll growth of around 240,000.

And then we have a total of 175 S&P 500 companies scheduled to report earnings this week. The roster includes stellar names like Apple, Amazon, Eli Lilly, and, dear readers, Advanced Micro Devices  (AMD) .

AMD is slated to report first-quarter earnings on Tuesday and one Wall Street firm sees the semiconductor company as a "battleground" stock worth tracking.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect AMD, engaged in an ongoing war for market share with AI chip-making titan Nvidia  (NVDA) , to report 62 cents per share on $5.48 billion in revenue.

In January, AMD reported fourth-quarter earnings of 77 cents per share, up from 69 cents in the year-ago quarter, matching the FactSet consensus.

Revenue totaled $6.17 billion, up from $5.60 billion in the year ago quarter and beating FactSet's call for $6.13 billion in sales.

AMD CEO Lisa Su faces slow demand for core chips but sees accelerating demand for AI chips.<p>TheStreet&sol;Shutterstock&sol;David Becker&sol;Stringer&sol;Getty Images</p>
AMD CEO Lisa Su faces slow demand for core chips but sees accelerating demand for AI chips.

TheStreet/Shutterstock/David Becker/Stringer/Getty Images

Analysts cite 'mixed conditions' despite AI push

AMD said its MI300X, a graphics-processing unit designed to support generative artificial intelligence technologies, was expected to produce around $3.5 billion in sales over the coming year as the company leveraged its new launch against Nvidia's ability to meet the global surge in demand.

In October, AMD said it expected $2 billion in server GPU sales in 2024.

Related: Nvidia set to capture billions as big tech boosts AI spending

CEO Lisa Su told analysts during the fourth-quarter earnings call that revenue had been driven by "a significant double-digit percentage growth" in the company's data center and client segments.

Data center revenues, including the company's suite of new AI-focused chips, rose 38% to $2.3 billion.

The client segment, which includes personal computing, saw a 62% revenue surge to $1.5 billion.

AMD said data center revenue would be flat in the first quarter, with seasonal declines in server central processing units (CPUs) offset by sales of graphics processing units (GPUs), which are needed to train and deploy generative AI models.