AMD shares rise almost 8% as Wall Street supports chipmaker's outlook
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AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) flexed more muscle as trading progressed Wednesday as the chipmaker's shares surged almost 8% in the wake of the company's most-recent quarterly results and outlook.
Late Tuesday, AMD (AMD) said that for its fiscal first-quarter it expects sales to be in a range of $5B to $5.6B, which would be about 10% less than the same period a year ago. On a conference call Tuesday, Chief Executive Lisa Su said that AMD (AMD) expects its data center and embedded systems businesses to remain strong, and weakness to persist in its PC and gaming divisions.
"Our largest growth driver is the data center," Su said. "We're positive on what we can do [in the data center] and will watch the macro [economic environment] on client [PCs] and gaming."
Bank of America Securities analyst Vivek Arya called AMD's (AMD) outlook a "mixed bag", but that an anticipated ramp up in server sales "should rejuvenate" earnings in the second half of the year. 
Arya, who estimates that AMD's (AMD) server business can grow at least 20% this year from 2022, has a buy ratings and $82-a-share price target on the company's stock.
At Piper Sandler, analyst Harsh Kumar said he was "enthused" by AMD's (AMD) outlook, and that the "most important and notable items" from the company's report are that AMD (AMD) expects data center and PC sales to bottom out in the first quarter of this year and then begin to head north.
Kumar holds an overweight rating and $90-a-share price target on AMD's (AMD) stock.
Along with its outlook, AMD (AMD) also said that for its 2022 fourth quarter it earned 69 cents a share on $5.6B in revenue.
Craig Hallum analyst Christian Schwab wasn't as upbeat as some other analysts, as he cut his rating on AMD (AMD) to hold from buy on concerns about the rate of the company's revenue growth.