AMD Shares Fall 2.6% As September Seasonal Slump And Chip Sector Pressure Weigh On Stock Thursday Morning

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. fell $13.76, or 2.64%, to $507.34 as of 10:04 a.m. ET Thursday, pulling back alongside a broader decline across semiconductor stocks even as the chipmaker's underlying business fundamentals have continued to show significant strength through 2026.

Thursday's decline came amid a difficult session for the broader chip sector, with rival Nvidia also trading lower after Bloomberg reported the Justice Department is reviewing whether Nvidia's $20 billion arrangement with AI chip startup Groq was structured to limit antitrust scrutiny, weighing on sentiment across AI-linked semiconductor names more broadly.

Despite Thursday's pullback, AMD shares remain up sharply for the year, having gained more than 100% since the start of 2026, according to CNN, driven by a wave of major AI infrastructure partnerships and strong quarterly earnings growth throughout the year. The stock touched a 52-week high of $584.73 on June 30, according to CNBC data, before pulling back into a more volatile trading range over the following months.

AMD's underlying business has continued posting strong results throughout the year. The company reported second-quarter revenue of $11.5 billion, up 50% year over year and ahead of the company's own prior guidance, according to Morningstar analyst Brian Colello. AMD's guidance for the September quarter calls for revenue of approximately $13 billion, representing 41% year-over-year growth and coming in ahead of the $12.5 billion consensus estimate compiled by FactSet at the time of the report.

The company's data center segment has emerged as a particularly significant growth driver. AMD's data center revenue doubled year over year to $6.7 billion in the second quarter of 2026, according to 24/7 Wall St., with CEO Lisa Su guiding for revenue growth substantially above 35% for the full year and earnings per share exceeding $20, backed by anchor GPU purchasing commitments from major AI companies including OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and Oracle.

AMD has continued expanding its position within the broader AI infrastructure buildout through a series of partnerships and acquisitions throughout the year. The company announced its acquisition of Taalas in early August to advance compute solutions for the rapidly growing AI inference market. AMD also expanded its AI infrastructure footprint in Saudi Arabia through a partnership involving Cisco and HUMAIN, bringing AMD Instinct systems online in that market. Separately, the company appointed Tim Ryan to its board of directors in August, and announced a collaboration with Cerebras focused on delivering ultra-low-latency, high-throughput AI inference solutions.

Not every recent signal surrounding AMD has been uniformly positive. High-profile investor Cathie Wood, whose Ark Invest funds have been closely watched for their positioning in high-growth technology stocks, has continued reducing her firm's stake in AMD in recent weeks, according to Benzinga and CNN, selling shares of the company while redirecting capital toward other names including Rocket Lab and, more recently, Robinhood and Cerebras.

Wall Street analyst sentiment toward AMD has remained largely constructive despite that selling activity from Wood's funds. One analyst recently upgraded AMD stock and estimated roughly 30% additional upside for the shares, according to reporting from the Motley Fool, while a separate analyst comparison from TipRanks found AMD receiving a more favorable outlook than rival Intel in a direct head-to-head assessment of the two companies' AI chip prospects.

AMD's stock has also drawn attention for its historical seasonal performance during the month of September specifically. According to an analysis from the Motley Fool, AMD shares have declined in eight of the past 10 Septembers, with a median decline of roughly 5% during the month, a considerably weaker pattern than the broader S&P 500, which fell in only five of those same 10 Septembers and finished roughly flat at the median over that stretch. That seasonal pattern adds some context to Thursday's pullback, even though the specific decline appears more directly tied to broader chip-sector weakness and the Nvidia-related regulatory news than to any AMD-specific negative development.

Morningstar analyst Brian Colello has described AMD's position within the broader AI chip market as promising but still developing relative to industry leader Nvidia, noting that while AMD continues to lag Nvidia in overall AI market share, there remains substantial room in the broader AI computing market for AMD to continue growing. Colello noted that AMD will need to continue improving its software capabilities to more meaningfully challenge Nvidia's dominance, given that Nvidia's advantage extends beyond raw chip performance to include its associated AI software tools and broader developer ecosystem.

Some longer-term bullish analysis has continued to frame AMD's trajectory in ambitious terms. According to 24/7 Wall St., AMD's stock has delivered a roughly 6,800% return over the trailing 10 years, with some analysts now projecting a credible path toward $800 per share by 2028, contingent on the successful rollout of the company's next-generation Helios computing platform and continued strength in the broader AI capital expenditure cycle across major technology companies. That same analysis cautioned that risks including escalating trade tariffs or potential restrictions on chip sales to China could complicate that more optimistic longer-term trajectory.

With AMD's market capitalization standing at approximately $825.6 billion as of recent trading, according to CNBC data, and the stock continuing to trade at a significant premium reflecting investor expectations for sustained AI-driven growth, Thursday's pullback appears to reflect broader sector-wide pressure tied to the Nvidia regulatory news and typical September seasonal weakness rather than any fundamental deterioration in AMD's own underlying business performance, which has continued to post strong year-over-year growth across its data center and AI-focused product lines throughout 2026.