AMD's earnings could be a sign of semiconductors' recovery
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Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) gets into the earnings-reporting game after Tuesday's stock-market close, and Wall Street will be looking for evidence that the chipmaker is seeing some of the same signs of sector improvement as its larger rival, Intel (INTC).
Analysts currently expect AMD (AMD) to report a first-quarter profit of 56 cents a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $5.31B. During the same period a year ago, AMD (AMD) earned $1.13 a share, excluding one-time items, on $5.9B in revenue.
AMD's (AMD) results come less than a week after Intel (INTC) delivered its first-quarter report, which included better-than-expected results, and a second-quarter revenue forecast of between $11.5B and $12.5B. Intel's (INTC) upbeat report and forecast gave investors' reason to believe that the worst of the issues that has hampered the chip market over the last year might be over.
For AMD (AMD), investors are likely to key in on what the company says about its data center and PC sales, in particular. Among Wall Street analysts, AMD (AMD) is forecast to report data center revenue of $1.45B, gaming revenue of $1.53B and embedded chip sales of $1.42B. Client revenue is forecast to total $908M. 
AMD's (AMD) results could also add to the sentiment from Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya, who on Monday said that based on data from the Semiconductor Industry Association trade group, chip sales in March rose by 15% over February, and that a handful of chip companies have said they see a "measured recovery" taking place through the second half of the year. 
Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore was a little more cautious about AMD (AMD), and said that "inventories are high" for chips used for cloud computing, while "we see a partial offset" as PC sales should show a slight recovery in the second half of the year.
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