AMD bucks trend as chips slump after Powell testimony
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AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) bucked the trend on Tuesday as semiconductor stocks were largely lower after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated the Fed may need to raise interest rates more-than-expected and for a longer period of time.
AMD (AMD) rose 0.8% in late day trading, while competitor Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) erased earlier gains and fell 0.8% to $233.64. No apparent news could be seen to cause the outperformance. However, it was reported last week that activist hedge fund Third Point had taken a passive stake in AMD (AMD). 
ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ:ON) shares gained 0.9% as investment firm Rosenblatt Securities said the company's long-term supply agreement with BMW was a positive, as its silicon carbide manufacturing capacity and packaging technology are "key market differentiators."
Competitors Wolfspeed (WOLF) and STMicro (STM) were near their session lows, down 2.8% and 2.4%, respectively.
Semiconductor stocks related to smartphones, including Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Qorvo (QRVO) and Cirrus Logic (CRUS) fared slightly better than the rest of the section, with the trio down less than 1%. 
Several other semiconductor stocks in the S&P 500 did not fare as well, however, as Intel (INTC), Qualcomm (QCOM), NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) and Texas Instruments (TXN) were all lower, including a more than 3% decline for Qualcomm (QCOM).
Last month, investment firm Bernstein said AMD (AMD) and Apple (AAPL) could be responsible for Intel (INTC) never seeking "peak" PC revenues again.