Personal computing discussed

Moderators: askfranklin, renee, emkubed, Captain Ned

 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 4:39 pm

Ive been watching, as i'm sure many of you have, the "decline" of AMD over the past years (many of them actually). So it seems odd that I would be talking about purchasing stock in AMD, something I recently did.

You might be asking yourself why on earth anyone would consider sinking any amount of cash into what appears to be a failing company or one that can't beat Intel. To that I can simply answer "Intel isn't who they have to compete with." I think as techy types we are having a hard time seperating Intel and AMD from each other.

Since Rory Read claimed to be taking AMD in a different direction, one that included markets outside the PC I was very skeptical. However, if you look at what areas of business comprise the whole of the company you'll see that only 1/3 of its revenue comes from the PC market. This is a drastic change from say... 5 years ago.

Many of the markets AMD can and is starting to compete in are not frequented by Intel, discrete graphics, gaming console APUs which are desktop variants at present but plans for a console specific design is coming down the pipe. They are however avoiding putting to much stock in ultra low powered designs for things like smart phones as there are so many competitors including Intel trying to merge into this market. They are also backing away from the high end PC cpu market as they just cant compete and margins are barrelly enough for Intel to profit.

So it appears that AMD is looking at the middle of the road approach and will attempt to grab up what every other competitor is ignoring to a degree. People seem to either want ultra low powered devices with SoCs or high powered desktops for gaming (minimal) and production workststions and of course enterprise servers. Yet there is an entirely different market that makes up a large portion of the tecj industry, which is the middle of the pack performing devices, consoles being a center piece of this market.

All of this of course means cut backs that we have seen over the course of Rory Reads tenure and in the first month of Lisa Su's reign. My feeling is that this was nesscary to fix the over-inflated AMD that the likes of Hector Ruiz helped create and the longest battle to "get even" with Intel over Anti-Trust violations that Dirk Meyer sat through at the helm. The company's history seems to always revolve around fixing things and repairing damaged caused by Intel or its own internal short comings and conflicts of interest.

All of that said, I think AMD seperating itself from Intel is a big deal. Intel also has no reason to chase after AMD since the PC chip market isnt worth fighting over, there are bigger battles to be won. This of course is crappy news as a PC enthusiast, but possible good news as an investor. I feel now is the time to purchase some stock in AMD if that is your sort of thing. At around 2.50 to 2.70 a share it seems like a cheap risk with potential for some high returns in the long run, 3 years probably. I forsee its value going up about double in around 2 years as their new image begins to become more apparent to people.

Bear in mind that I am NOT an investment guru by any means and don't claim to be, in fact am fresh at this investing thing. I have been following AMD for many years and finally felt it the right time to have a dog in the fight. This doesnt mean im wearing AMD shirts, hats and waving a flag. I continue to purchase Intel over AMD as far as CPUs for obvious reasons.

I'd love to hear other gerbils thoughts on this topic of AMD investments and even competiting stocks.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
Flying Fox
Gerbil God
Posts: 25690
Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 2:19 am
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 6:19 pm

Not that I have any position in AMD, but in my head, my simulated scenario for anything to do with AMD stock is just to play the charts. When it drops near or below $2 you know it is just too low and is due for a bounce. Low price per share entry, if you are ballsy and can get that 30% bounce (of course you need to set stop loss), you can have a nice tidy profit and cash out. Kind of play it like a near penny stock.

Of course, this is an internet forum, take my view as is. I have not personally tried this myself.
The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Gerbils unite! Fold for UnitedGerbilNation, team 2630.
 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 6:37 pm

I could agree with that Fox, and even in the short term I think that strategy can work if penny stocks are your thing. I believe penny stocks are considered now to be anything under $5 according to some sites I was reading, so AMD definitely qualifies in that regard lol.

I thought about the short term trade option and something as cheap as AMD would be an alright route for doing this, however my feeling is that it is now actually going to steadily grow and stay on-top. Not to mention in order to make any amount worth talking about off of short term low priced stocks you have to deal in larger quantities (more money) to make it worth your time. I saw a post by a speculative investor saying he always noticed AMD stock settling into 3 major "points" which was something like $2.40, $2.60 and upwards of $2.90ish, it just seems to bounce between the same price points on close very often.

AMD previously had so much trouble with living in Intel's shadow, I think that is mostly over and Intel's moved on to make profits elsewhere. Here is to hoping for my stock sakes. I've got mixed feelings about it because of course I want AMD to be the CPU powerhouse it should have been in circa 2001.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
Captain Ned
Global Moderator
Posts: 28704
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 6:56 pm

Might I remind all here that advocating trading in specific stocks may well run afoul of both SEC regulations and the securities regulations of whatever your state of residence may be?
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:05 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Might I remind all here that advocating trading in specific stocks may well run afoul of both SEC regulations and the securities regulations of whatever your state of residence may be?


Really? I thought that was only if you had some sort of invested interested in the company. I guess my measly 70 shares counts for something lol. I wouldn't say that I'm advocating everyone runs out and buy shares, I'm more of less looking for a conversation about the direction of AMD and other tech related stocks and investment opportunities and sharing what I'm doing and thinking of doing.

I appreciate the heads up though, I guess I should look into that. Again, I'm not a guru by any means of the term and this was actually my first stock purchase ever :P.


Updated:
I couldn't find anything from the SEC about this other than insider trading.
http://www.sec.gov/answers/insider.htm

Which in my case of course doesn't apply :P, I've got no ties to AMD staffers what so ever. Just a guy speculating.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
Flying Fox
Gerbil God
Posts: 25690
Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 2:19 am
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:13 pm

Welch wrote:
however my feeling is that it is now actually going to steadily grow and stay on-top.

I thought when it comes to "investing" you are not supposed to get into this thing called "feeling"? :P

I don't see any growth factor if you were to ask me. The latest consoles look nice on paper, but it is not a company saver even the volumes look high (AMD's cut of the revenue from each consoles sold is not that high). I actually see this new generation of console not doing so well compared to the last one. I see a few factors:
1) Lack of games
2) People seem to be satisfied with ~720p quality. The latest craze in 3D and now 4K are still not getting too many people excited.
3) Related to #2, I would say only now we can call the analog to digital and SD to HD conversion to be "nearly complete". This is a once-in-a-generation change and is huge. I am not sure if the general public wants to change again so far. I see at least another 3-5 years.

The ARM stuff? I just don't see it yet. It is a nice distraction from the "Intel's shadow" talk, but you need to be realistic to the real server market. It is still an x86/x64 world. If history is any guide we know that software always moves slower than hardware, no matter how fast software engineers claim they can move. Financial and other factors always get in the way. It is true that the few big set of data centers (FB, AAPL, MSFT, GOOG, AMZN) will be buying a lot of servers in the next little while, but they are also looking for cheap servers. In terms of dollar value, there is still a lot of money in enterprises and service providers.

Then there is manufacturing. They had to cut it to survive a few years back, but this just means they are falling further behind compared to Intel. Look at the delays at TSMC and GFlo. I am not optimistic they can produce anything meaningful anytime soon with their so-called new designs.

Speaking of design, what design? They have been laying off engineers. Unless they are still hiding some super genius, are they really going to put out anything revolutionary? We would have heard names by now. Not a blip...

And then there is finance. I haven't checked but they are still in debt, right? This is always going to be a monkey on their backs. They have to make interest payments and will hamper their cash flow. You can't do much if you do not even have cash to continue developing any of your "taking over the world" ideas. It's a vicious cycle.
The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Gerbils unite! Fold for UnitedGerbilNation, team 2630.
 
Captain Ned
Global Moderator
Posts: 28704
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:18 pm

Welch wrote:
Really? I thought that was only if you had some sort of invested interested in the company. I guess my measly 70 shares counts for something lol. I wouldn't say that I'm advocating everyone runs out and buy shares, I'm more of less looking for a conversation about the direction of AMD and other tech related stocks and investment opportunities and sharing what I'm doing and thinking of doing.

Note I said "may". The real question is if your post influences others to make a similar trade. That's when you may (not will) run afoul of investment advisor regulations, especially in the penny-stock realm (long a wretched hive of scum and villainy).

[/day job]
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 12:25 am

Captain Ned wrote:
Welch wrote:
Really? I thought that was only if you had some sort of invested interested in the company. I guess my measly 70 shares counts for something lol. I wouldn't say that I'm advocating everyone runs out and buy shares, I'm more of less looking for a conversation about the direction of AMD and other tech related stocks and investment opportunities and sharing what I'm doing and thinking of doing.

Note I said "may". The real question is if your post influences others to make a similar trade. That's when you may (not will) run afoul of investment advisor regulations, especially in the penny-stock realm (long a wretched hive of scum and villainy).

[/day job]


Fair enough :)

@Fox - Yeah "feelings" are supposed to be left out of it lol. Perhaps feeling was the wrong word... according to the information I've been reading, seeing, ect... It is my opinion that AMD will steadily grow to profit and stay profitable, no more yo-yo effect.

As far as their debt, yes they are in debt. But according to a post off Trefis.com they increased revenue by 15% and lowered their net losses down to $39 million in 2014 (makes it sound so rosy lol) compared to $172 million for the first 3 quarters of 2013. This was after a lot of restructure obviously and your right in saying they have reduced a lot of their staff/engineers so that is a point I'll be interested to see in the long term. I recall they appointed someone new who they are all gaga over and when the name or article comes to me again I'll post it up.

I'll agree 100% with you on the points of 720p... although a lot of people do want 1080 since their TV supports it. There is always the group that doesn't know the difference and wouldn't notice it if not shown. 3D is a joke to me and most people... 4k is fine and dandy but I wasn't so blow away with it that I just had to run out and buy a new monitor or TV, most consumers will buy it if they are offered it cheap enough. I can't speak for the lack of games, I'm not a console person.

As far as the current generation consoles (not counting the poor Wii U), the PS4 and XboX One actually were out performing sales expectations and were on track for a record Christmas sales year. I'm staying tuned for those numbers to be released when they finally put out the report.

In regards to their manufacturing it would seem they made a "mistake" by selling it off years ago, but they really weren't in a position to hold onto it. They received a lot of hell for this, but then again they were given a lot of grief over their purchase of ATI and the price they paid for it. Looking at their graphics division, its one of the few things making them money, and without it they wouldn't have the APUs that won them the console bids. The overall companies diversity is good, they just haven't been top teir in any of those departments, arguably back and forth in the graphics world with Nvidia.

The designs I was referring to were the x86 and ARM based design wins. Supposedly one of them is going to be a refresh to the Wii U but I haven't follow that up long enough to find that out. Here is a quote from Devinder Kumar, AMD CFO. He straight out confirms these semi-custom designs and of course doesn't share what exactly they are as I'm sure they are bound by the companies in question for the design. Unless he is telling a bold face lie, which would be ballsy to do it so blatantly, then I think its enough to bring them to profit on top of performing well in all of the other areas they have.
The other thing I’ll mention in the semi-custom business which you probably picked up in the announcement that we had in October earnings call is we’ve been having a lot of interest in the semi-custom business, the semi-custom business is very unique, whereby it takes AMD’s core IP, we use it across market segments, across customers, across products, customer interest has been high and we projected earlier this year that we would have at least one to two semi-custom design wins and I’m pleased to report that we have those design wins, the work to design the products that has already started, the contract assigned and those parts get introduced in 2016.

We didn’t say at which space it is in. I’m not going to give too much detail. I’ll say that one is x86 and one is ARM, and atleast one will be on gaming, right. But that’s about as much as you going to get out me today, because the customers from the standpoint to be fair to them. It is their product. They launch it. They announce it and then just like the game console or the parts you find out that its AMD’s APU that’s been used in those products.


Source: http://wiiudaily.com/2014/12/amd-hints- ... e-in-2016/

AMD has a lot of things going for it if it could nail down some solid performing designs (a big IF obviously) that are not refreshes of their existing junk. CPU, GPU, APUs, Chipsets, its the complete package. Intel can't really say that they have an out the door package unless they start developing discrete graphics. Nvidia has graphics, and nothing else until you get into the SoC market but have fallen wayside to QualComm's snapdragon for phone/tablet SoCs. Its a matter of them bringing it all together which is easier said than done.

I don't foresee them taking over the world lol, but I see them becoming a much more steady player in the game over the next few years, just a different game than what I and many of us were hoping. We shall see, I'm putting my opinion out there so that I can look at it in a few years and either kick myself in the ass or pat myself on the back....... or the third option is look at it and laugh because they are stuck in the same place and have made zero progress :roll: .
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
Kougar
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2306
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:12 am
Location: Texas

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:02 am

Flying Fox wrote:
Then there is manufacturing. They had to cut it to survive a few years back, but this just means they are falling further behind compared to Intel. Look at the delays at TSMC and GFlo. I am not optimistic they can produce anything meaningful anytime soon with their so-called new designs.

Speaking of design, what design? They have been laying off engineers. Unless they are still hiding some super genius, are they really going to put out anything revolutionary? We would have heard names by now. Not a blip...


Except that is exactly the point being made. People expect a huge revolutionary design out of AMD but indications are that's not what AMD is trying to do anymore. AMD is a company that realizes it will never be able to compete on a manufacturing process close to Intel, which means there's little point in entering the extremely low power markets when Intel will always win that through its process manufacturing lead. Similarly AMD has run out of groundbreaking processor designs so competing as a market leader is also a bad idea, I think AMD made several announcements to this effect.

Companies don't have to live off revolutionary or market-leading products to do well as long as they are structured properly for massive volume, low margin products. Winning in all the consoles does exactly that. That AMD is showing some business acumen with its new strategic plan is in fact a promising foundation they can now build upon. It's certainly better than the wild, random flailing they had been doing since 2007. The only question is can they fill enough healthy markets to sustain them as it takes much longer to turn a large multi-corporate company into a single, lean nimble one than it does to build one from scratch.

Intel has already shown it has limited interest in low margin markets, and that it was willing to sell it's chips at a loss just to brute-force itself into the low power mobile & smartphone markets. That hasn't exactly worked yet either even with its manufacturing advantage, so it was a good call for AMD to not even waste money trying. AMD stock is still a gamble, but there's at least some promise now. If they can successfully shrink the company and continue to deliver into new markets then they are set. But many large international businesses have tried the same and failed. That AMD is still endeavoring to do so should prove how tough it actually is to pull it off.
 
MadManOriginal
Gerbil Jedi
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: In my head...

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:06 am

Welch wrote:
I could agree with that Fox, and even in the short term I think that strategy can work if penny stocks are your thing. I believe penny stocks are considered now to be anything under $5 according to some sites I was reading, so AMD definitely qualifies in that regard lol.

I thought about the short term trade option and something as cheap as AMD would be an alright route for doing this, however my feeling is that it is now actually going to steadily grow and stay on-top. Not to mention in order to make any amount worth talking about off of short term low priced stocks you have to deal in larger quantities (more money) to make it worth your time. I saw a post by a speculative investor saying he always noticed AMD stock settling into 3 major "points" which was something like $2.40, $2.60 and upwards of $2.90ish, it just seems to bounce between the same price points on close very often.

AMD previously had so much trouble with living in Intel's shadow, I think that is mostly over and Intel's moved on to make profits elsewhere. Here is to hoping for my stock sakes. I've got mixed feelings about it because of course I want AMD to be the CPU powerhouse it should have been in circa 2001.


Investing is all about percentages. Share price is only relevant in so far as how fine grained you can take positions in number of shares with a given amount of principal. (ex: a price of $5 versus $50: you can invest $1000 as 200 shares or 20 shares, if either goes up by 5% you've gained $50. You just can't put $1025 into a stock with a share price of $50.) You don't need to 'put more money' into a given stock based on its share price, and not equating share price with the 'expensiveness' or value of a stock is pretty much investing 101.

In regards to AMD in particular, it's pretty much a speculative or trading stock now, and has been for years. If you want to buy and sell it, great, just be ready to do so and don't let fees eat up profits - but the real smart move is to not try out outdo the professional traders. It's definitely a company you would want to put in the 'I am willing to lose all this money' category and ought to be a small percentage of anyone's basic portfolio if they own it. Other plays like options and so on are another story as always. If one is new to investing in individual stocks, AMD is not a great place to start imo.
 
Meadows
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Posts: 3416
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:10 pm
Location: Location: Location

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:28 am

Captain Ned wrote:
Note I said "may". The real question is if your post influences others to make a similar trade. That's when you may (not will) run afoul of investment advisor regulations, especially in the penny-stock realm (long a wretched hive of scum and villainy).
[/day job]

I'm not the expert here, so I have a question: does the above still hold if he appends a disclaimer or warning not to take his word as specific advice?

Besides, AMD is not exactly a penny stock (as low in value as it is) so I doubt a dozen gerbils are going to influence its price or raise pump&dump red flags for anyone.
 
Meadows
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Posts: 3416
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:10 pm
Location: Location: Location

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:50 am

MadManOriginal wrote:
not equating share price with the 'expensiveness' or value of a stock is pretty much investing 101.

In proper technical analysis, equating share price with "expensiveness" is actually the best way to make money, as long as you look at past price action events and compare current price to those levels.
After all, if something's discounted, it's a good idea to buy, and if something's overpriced, then you want to be the seller of it instead. That's what people do in basically every other part of life. Why do investments backwards?

Of course, in this case, one has to do either a market profile analysis or a supply&demand analysis on the last bounce before one can conclude that that price has indeed been "too low". I haven't done such an analysis and I don't usually trade stocks anyway, so I will not advise.
 
ptsant
Gerbil XP
Posts: 397
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:45 pm

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 4:16 am

Flying Fox wrote:
I actually see this new generation of console not doing so well compared to the last one. I see a few factors:
1) Lack of games
2) People seem to be satisfied with ~720p quality. The latest craze in 3D and now 4K are still not getting too many people excited.
3) Related to #2, I would say only now we can call the analog to digital and SD to HD conversion to be "nearly complete". This is a once-in-a-generation change and is huge. I am not sure if the general public wants to change again so far. I see at least another 3-5 years.


The market penetration of new consoles is always slow, especially when new architectures require a change in programming. However, the current generation is much more powerful than the previous and, even if display resolution resolution stays at 720p, the texture resolution and polygon count is certainly going to be very different. So, people are going to upgrade, maybe at a lower price point, but I don't see this generation stagnating.

Anyway, from a financial viewpoint, the interest of these design wins is not about making a lot of money, but about reducing income volatility and risk. The semi-custom wins just need to provide long-term, relatively stable income which will serve as a backbone for the company.

The ARM stuff? I just don't see it yet. It is a nice distraction from the "Intel's shadow" talk, but you need to be realistic to the real server market. It is still an x86/x64 world. If history is any guide we know that software always moves slower than hardware, no matter how fast software engineers claim they can move. Financial and other factors always get in the way. It is true that the few big set of data centers (FB, AAPL, MSFT, GOOG, AMZN) will be buying a lot of servers in the next little while, but they are also looking for cheap servers. In terms of dollar value, there is still a lot of money in enterprises and service providers.


I really don't know the server market, but I can certainly imagine Google or Amazon actually buying a server chip design from AMD, completely adapted to their requirements. Just like custom makes sense in the console market, it can make sense if you plan on buying hundreds of thousands of CPUs. Don't forget that the software infrastructure is generally Unix/POSIX compatible and would just need to be recompiled for ARM. This is not the same situation as low-level coding for the consoles. The Linux+DBs+HTTP servers and almost all scripting/interpreted language can be made to run on a Rapsberry Pi by a hobbyist, so running a different architecture is not that hard.

Then there is manufacturing. They had to cut it to survive a few years back, but this just means they are falling further behind compared to Intel. Look at the delays at TSMC and GFlo. I am not optimistic they can produce anything meaningful anytime soon with their so-called new designs.


Intel has had trouble with their processess, too. They have, by far, the best manufacturing but the playing field is level with respect to all other competitors (nvidia, other ARM manufacturers). Furthermore, the advantage of a new process has been shrinking, even for Intel. Compare a Sandy Bridge 2700K with a 3770K and a 4770K. The difference is real, but not huge, and anyone can tell you that clocks have stagnated at around 4-4.5 GHz across processess. This is not a situation where the low-end Haswell humiliates the high-end Sandy Bridge in raw performance.

Unless they are still hiding some super genius, are they really going to put out anything revolutionary? We would have heard names by now. Not a blip...


I think that this is very, very positive. The bulldozer family has been a major marketing fiasco. In my opinion, AMD should not try to overhype their products and risk disappointing costumers. In fact, I have often been saying that the Vishera (FX8350) and especially Kaveri (A10-7850) chips are much better than what people think. They are simply worse than what people expected and this is a marketing failure, not an engineering failure. By promoting and pricing their products correctly AMD can do much better without having the best designs on the planet. Not everyone drives a Ferrari, you know.

And then there is finance. I haven't checked but they are still in debt, right? This is always going to be a monkey on their backs. They have to make interest payments and will hamper their cash flow. You can't do much if you do not even have cash to continue developing any of your "taking over the world" ideas. It's a vicious cycle.


From what I've seen, but I'm not at all a financial expert, they have reprofiled their debt in favorable terms. I can't tell you the details, but intuitively we all agree that owning $10000 in your credit cards is not the same as owning $10000 in mortgage debt. The financial burden is quite different. Supposedly, AMD has achieved a much more favorable debt profile in terms of interest rates and payment dates. Take this with a grain of salt...

To sum it up, AMD is a risky investment proposition, but their engineering assets really are not that bad. AMD has suffered from catastrophic management, but I can see them surviving with what they have if they choose their battles correctly. I don't see the x86 high-performance arena as a prority or a viable target, but there are many niches that can provide a nice bit of income and sustain the company.
Image
 
ptsant
Gerbil XP
Posts: 397
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:45 pm

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 5:15 am

Meadows wrote:
MadManOriginal wrote:
not equating share price with the 'expensiveness' or value of a stock is pretty much investing 101.

In proper technical analysis, equating share price with "expensiveness" is actually the best way to make money, as long as you look at past price action events and compare current price to those levels.


I think he was referring to the comparison between stocks, not with respect to historical prices. In that sense, a $5 share is not necessarily "cheaper" than a $50 share, obviously.
Image
 
Meadows
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Posts: 3416
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:10 pm
Location: Location: Location

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:04 am

ptsant wrote:
I think he was referring to the comparison between stocks, not with respect to historical prices. In that sense, a $5 share is not necessarily "cheaper" than a $50 share, obviously.

I see. Naturally, comparing different stocks is always a matter of apples to oranges. An instrument can be "cheap" or "expensive" but only compared to itself.
 
BIF
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2458
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:41 pm

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:18 pm

I have a charting service that tells me fundamentals and technicals on any stock in the major exchanges. Out of curiosity, I looked up AMD. What an eye-opener, and not really in a good way.

AMD's sales are down 2% in last quarter, and down 6% in the last 3 years. I suspect that their CPU business is killing them, and that their GPU business is holding up the paper walls, and not very well either because earnings per share is down 25%, and hasn't grown in the last three years.

Just avoiding a "loss" is not good enough in the stock market. Steady growth in sales and earnings will drive a stock price up as institutions buy it, increasing demand and lowering supply. Declining growth will have the reverse effect, and losses even more so. Strictly by my chart service I see no growth here, but hope springs eternal: New earnings are due in a few weeks, on January 21st. We'll see... :roll:

So earnings was 3 cents per share in September. At least that's not zero, and it's not a negative number. But it might as well be, because debt is screamingly high, over 360%. The one good thing I can find is that R&D is almost 23%, but stocks don't go up long-term unless they can show increasing sales and increasing earnings quarter after quarter and year after year. By comparison, Intel's debt is 23% and R&D is 20%.

AMD is trading under $3.00. This is an important point because along with sales and earnings, share price is an indicator of institutional support (ownership by banks, pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, etcetera). Stocks lower than $15-20 usually don't have a lot of support from institutions. Institutions are typically long-term holders, and you want some portion of the float to be held by these!

In my opinion, even mildly bad news could push this stock lower. I hope Lisa Su is taking her Vitamin C and doesn't come to work with a cough one of these days! The days after January 21st will be interesting. If the earnings release is delayed for ANY reason, that would be a very bad thing.

Stocks under $5 will go under $1 far more often than they will go up to $10. Do you realize that this stock hasn't seen $5 since July 2012? Whenever it goes above $4.00, it can't seem to stay there for more than a week or two. This is because of the overhanging supply (investors getting the hell out at $4.00, and probably counting themselves lucky at that). Overhanging supply will not go away unless this company turns things around and starts making and selling product.

Also, if a stock goes below $1, there is a strong chance it will be delisted from the major exchange (in this case NYSE), making it difficult-to-impossible for the stock to stage a comeback rise. Next would be a sale, bankrupcy, merger, or bailout. Some companies attempt to forestall a delisting by doing a "reverse split". A 2-into-1 or 4-into-1 split would immediately raise the share price to the $5-16 range, but the market usually sees this for what it is: a last-gasp from a dying firm's board. Without other good news (like improving sales and earnings), the stock would just be back to $2.69 in less than a year, and maybe lower.

I found another interesting tidbit: Published information shows that insiders have not been buying this stock with their own money, but they HAVE been selling whenever the price rises to about $4.00, specifically in all four calendar quarters in 2014 (I don't know when AMD's fiscal year begins/ends). Now there are a lot of valid reasons to sell a stock (even for insiders), but it's interesting that insider selling has coincided with institutional selling trends almost every quarter since 2012.

I wouldn't buy this zombie stock for myself, but I'll tune in again in late January when earnings is announced. Things could get interesting.
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:41 pm

@BIF - Minor nit, they moved to the NASDAQ recently; but IIRC NASDAQ has the same de-listing rules so it doesn't really make a difference.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
nanoflower
Gerbil Team Leader
Posts: 281
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:10 pm

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:41 pm

It seems to me that every bit of good news for AMD is tied to 2016. That means this year will see AMD coasting. Now hopefully that means no bad news to tank the stock but also nothing that will provide a good reason for the stock price to rise. So I'm not expecting a big increase in share price this year and possibly a drop depending on what happens in the rest of the market. Towards the end of the year it seems like that would be a good time to take a hard look at buying some shares as the new CPUs and GPUs expected for 2016 may provide a reason for the stock to go up in price, at least temporarily.
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:50 pm

It's like the matra of Chicago Cubs fans - "Just wait until next year!"
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
MadManOriginal
Gerbil Jedi
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: In my head...

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:53 pm

Meadows wrote:
ptsant wrote:
I think he was referring to the comparison between stocks, not with respect to historical prices. In that sense, a $5 share is not necessarily "cheaper" than a $50 share, obviously.

I see. Naturally, comparing different stocks is always a matter of apples to oranges. An instrument can be "cheap" or "expensive" but only compared to itself.


Yes, that is what I was saying. Except the OP stated something like 'you need to buy more of it to make money because of the share price' which is precisely the wrong way to think about stock ownership. Maybe he meant 'buy more shares', which is obviously true for a lower priced stock, but that wasn't the meaning I got since he mentioned a position dollar amount.
 
Deanjo
Graphmaster Gerbil
Posts: 1212
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:31 am

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Mon Jan 05, 2015 12:35 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Might I remind all here that advocating trading in specific stocks may well run afoul of both SEC regulations and the securities regulations of whatever your state of residence may be?


Better not watch a financial business network, ever, then.
 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Mon Jan 05, 2015 9:57 pm

What I was trying to say with the buying more stock is that for it to be worth your investment you would probably need to buy more of a stock that cost so little. By this I mean if your going to buy 1000 bucks of a 2 or 3 dollar stock, if it increased by 30% great, your 300 bucks up in value. The same could be said for more expensive stock, 30% is 30%. Its when you take into consideration some of the higher priced and often (not always) better performing stocks or investments, some of which also have dividens. If you break up your "wealth" on some of the lower end stuff (in this case risky) you can have a missed oppertunity because of doing this.

Then again, the larger the risk the larger the reward, so long as its not a crappy investment with high risk and low rewards lol.

With this stock and I think any investment it goes without saying, dont spend anything you cant afford to lose completely.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
DrCR
Gerbil XP
Posts: 350
Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 7:18 am

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:06 am

Welch wrote:
it just seems to bounce between the same price points on close very often.

Welch,
Please realize what you are doing it speculating, not investing. Not that that's necessary a bad thing to do, but just realize you are performing newbish trend following, and that you may lose a very large chunk of your investment. My advice: If you get a small gain, take that gain and run. Or be willing to risk it all, but if you wanted to do that, I would advise you read up on options and go that route. [Edit: Unless you are just willing to put it in and forget about it for a few years, which read-reading some of your other post, may be what you are willing to do. Personally, I'm presently doing that with coal right now.]

What broker are you using? Just curious. If you would like to read up on options, this may be a good book to start with.

P.s. Also, if you are not investing in the context of a Roth IRA, you may wish to consider going that route.

Best regards
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:24 am

DrCR wrote:
My advice: If you get a small gain, take that gain and run. Or be willing to risk it all, but if you wanted to do that, I would advise you read up on options and go that route.

To leverage! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.

(With apologies to Homer Simpson...)
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Buzzard44
Gerbil Team Leader
Posts: 212
Joined: Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:17 am
Location: Lafayette, LA

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:57 am

just brew it! wrote:
DrCR wrote:
My advice: If you get a small gain, take that gain and run. Or be willing to risk it all, but if you wanted to do that, I would advise you read up on options and go that route.

To leverage! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.

(With apologies to Homer Simpson...)

Well you can also hedge with options - in my miniscule portfolio I write covered calls so I know I'll at least get something out of it.

DrCR wrote:
Welch, Please realize what you are doing it speculating, not investing.

+1. Gotta believe in the fundamentals and story and stick with it long term to really be investing, not just going for a short term bounce. Nothing wrong with speculation though if you've got the stomach to lose it if it comes to that or a stop loss at an appropriate level. Plus with under $200 at play, hell go for it.

DrCR wrote:
P.s. Also, if you are not investing in the context of a Roth IRA, you may wish to consider going that route.

True, but depending on how confident you are in the return, you might not want to go in a Roth IRA so you can take the loss off your taxes if you do lose some. One thing I like to do is invest some from my regular accounts, then if it goes down and I want to double down, double down using my Roth. Then when you sell, your largest gains are in your Roth (untaxed) and your smaller gains or bigger losses are in your regular. If you do something like this, just make sure you read and understand the rules of wash sales first though. Basically if you rebuy stock in something you sold 30 days or less after you sold it, you get kinda screwed on taxes.
Core i7-990X, 12 GB DDR3, 500GB BX100 SSD, 2x GTX 590s, 5x 2TB WD Greens, 1x 4TB WD Black
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:04 am

Buzzard44 wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
To leverage! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.

(With apologies to Homer Simpson...)

Well you can also hedge with options

That's the "solution" part. :wink:

Edit: In a former, former, former life I developed portfolio risk management software.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:16 am

I'm calling it investment because yes, I believe based on what I see its going somewhere, and all investments are speculative, which is also what I'm doing lol. It's only $200 so as you said, yeah I'm willing to lose it all as I don't plan to screw with it unless the company is about to go 100% broken and for sure is sinking. Otherwise if I sit on this stock for 5+ years and one day go.. "ohh, cool AMD is the number 1 semi-conductor business on the planet..." then great. Either way I'm not hurt by the "lose".

Yes your totally on point, I just opened a Roth IRA account about 2 weeks ago and plan on making contributions with a much more reserved investment style since it is in fact a retirement fund. I opened my account over at TradeKing because I liked what I saw and read about their investment tools, their service is supposedly top notch, their trades are only $4.95 and I'm curious to try out their first year free "Core" financial advising program to see if I like it, after that its 0.25% which is a bit cheaper than some of the other places I've seen that only offered ETFs.

Options seemed like an interesting but complicated affair at first look. TradeKing actually advises against applying for the right to Options on your account unless your well versed in it, and being a first time trader its something I'm not attempting to tackle yet.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x
 
madtronik
Gerbil In Training
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Oct 22, 2013 12:04 pm

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:17 am

Fair enough :)

@Fox - Yeah "feelings" are supposed to be left out of it lol. Perhaps feeling was the wrong word... according to the information I've been reading, seeing, ect... It is my opinion that AMD will steadily grow to profit and stay profitable, no more yo-yo effect.

As far as their debt, yes they are in debt. But according to a post off Trefis.com they increased revenue by 15% and lowered their net losses down to $39 million in 2014 (makes it sound so rosy lol) compared to $172 million for the first 3 quarters of 2013. This was after a lot of restructure obviously and your right in saying they have reduced a lot of their staff/engineers so that is a point I'll be interested to see in the long term. I recall they appointed someone new who they are all gaga over and when the name or article comes to me again I'll post it up.


Trefis is the thing most closely resembling chartist snake oil. In fact, most of the information I see in many finance webs is useless junk that could just have been written by an automated bot. You can find far more useful information just peering around your local stores, checking the documentation at ir.amd.com (if you know where to look there is some VERY interesting information specially in the long annual reports) and following the rumors around the tech webs.

About investing in the stock, the only thing that matter are profits. If there are profits there will be gains to be made. At the moment AMD is treading water thanks to consoles. Without them they would be toasted. The debt is a problem insofar without interest payments they would be already making a decent profit.

For a long time AMD has been coasting along with not very competitive products against Intel. In the past this worked because although Intel gained share, the overall market was growing. When the market started to slide they had a big problem because sales crashed and even Intel has problems filling its fabs.

AMD is right now paying for several mistakes made years ago (mistakes in tech, marketing, business angle, etc). They are in a hole and are trying to leave from it. They have cancelled many products and are funnelling most of their R&D resources towards the next gen tech due in 2016. Meanwhile they have a rough ride. In embedded they are growing double digit but they are starting so low that it will need a lot of time to become a sizable revenue source.

Overall they are in a "survive till 2016" mode with the minimum expenses to don't burn cash in the meantime. If the new tech is ready on time and half decent they will be in a far better position. With just 20% market share in the mass market and 10% in servers they could make a nice living in respect to how they are right now. They don't need to demolish Intel. But that's a few "ifs".
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 6:53 am

Welch wrote:
Options seemed like an interesting but complicated affair at first look. TradeKing actually advises against applying for the right to Options on your account unless your well versed in it, and being a first time trader its something I'm not attempting to tackle yet.

Yeah, definitely not for the inexperienced, or for the timid; you can easily lose the entire initial investment. (For certain types of speculative trades -- e.g. selling naked call options -- you are even on the hook for potentially unlimited losses.)
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Welch
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Topic Author
Posts: 3582
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:45 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: AMD Stock and other Investments

Wed Jan 07, 2015 7:39 am

just brew it! wrote:
Welch wrote:
Options seemed like an interesting but complicated affair at first look. TradeKing actually advises against applying for the right to Options on your account unless your well versed in it, and being a first time trader its something I'm not attempting to tackle yet.

Yeah, definitely not for the inexperienced, or for the timid; you can easily lose the entire initial investment. (For certain types of speculative trades -- e.g. selling naked call options -- you are even on the hook for potentially unlimited losses.)


I'd imagine that would be why they limit just anyone from hopping in, starting an account and throwing money at options, especially if your assets outside cash in account are at stake.

No doubt AMD is in a crappy spot, I realize that and I'm not blind to that. However, this time I'm sure they will make a come back of a different type, and yes after 2016 according to their road map. I don't take any one website or even multiples as a "Holy Grail" for information, that wouldn't be wise pretty much for any subject matter. On that Trefis article I was just pulling numbers that I had also seen elsewhere and were verifiable. Sure they give their opinion, and that's all fine and dandy. Its no different than what I'm doing, I've got my opinion based on info I've seen and I hope to god know one sees a single post I make and goes off buying something because of it.

There have been some good point brought up in this thread, its all I intended it for just as I do with any topic on TR. Start topic, discuss, learn.


So with a Roth IRA, how do most of you go about your "investments" with it. It seems like a lot people who don't know better simply contribute to a Roth that is a simple one offered by a bank, with a flat return rate. Obviously I could put it into a low risk mutual fund or the likes, but I'm interested on pushing a little closer on the risk line, not REALLY close, but more than 99% safe... more like 95% safe :P. Opinions?
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

1600x | Strix B350-F | CM 240 Lite | 16GB 3200 | RX 580 8GB | 970 EVO | Corsair 400R | Seasonic X 850 | Corsair M95 / K90 | Sennheiser PC37x

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On