Nvidia, AMD, Intel continue slide as Wall Street digests added China export rules
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Shares of chipmakers Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) continued to slide on Wednesday, as several Wall Street firms weighed in on the impact from the Biden Administration's new export controls on artificial intelligence-linked chips to China, with most expressing some form of concern.
Citi analysts said they believe the scope of the new thresholds set forth by the Biden administration will make it "difficult" for Nvidia to sell to China since it will require more than networking modifications made on the previous A800 and H800 products that were sent to China previously.
As such, Citi maintained its buy rating on Nvidia (NVDA), but lowered its price target to $575 from $630, as it is "de-risking" its fiscal 2025 and 2026 estimates. 
Morgan Stanley analysts, led by Joseph Moore, also lowered the firm's price target on Nvidia (moving to $600 from $630), noting their initial interpretation "looks more draconian" than expected.
"While export controls have been widely expected given recent press reports, this is at the more draconian end of expectations, in our view, and the selloff in the stock ... seems warranted," the analysts wrote.
"We were expecting a tightening of specifications, but the broad based license requirements in the gray area create more material uncertainty for a region driving 20-25% of demand."
Morgan Stanley added that Nvidia has "constrained" the builds of A800 and H800 products in recent months to focus on other regions, and that China is likely to go after lower performance alternatives if allowed to do so.
KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts, led by John Vinh, were a bit more tempered in their pessimism, but still pointed out that the announcement is a long term "negative."
"We believe this development likely will have minimal impact [near-term] to NVDA, as it should be able to backfill with demand from [the rest of the world]," the analysts wrote. Long term we view this as a negative, as it will ultimately be difficult to backfill China demand, which historically represents 20-25% of NVDA's data center revenues."
Several other analysts also pointed out that the new export controls could impact AMD (AMD) and Intel (INTC) to some extent, notably AMD's ability to ship its MI300 series AI chips and Intel's accelerator portfolio, which includes its Gaudi and Falcon Shores product lines. 

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