We may soon see "one of the biggest advances in years in the technology that powers laptop and desktop computers," according to the Wall Street Journal, as chipmakers begin to merge microprocessors and graphics-processing units.

Microprocessors are described as "the calculating engines that run most PC software," while graphics-processing units "render images in video games and other programs." According to the report, Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are expected to make announcements about this move at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show.

Continue reading AMD and Intel to Introduce Combination Chips

AMD and Intel to Introduce Combination Chips originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tuesday, chipmaker Xilinx (XLNX) announced that it was cutting its current-quarter (third quarter) revenue forecast thanks to weaker-than-expected sales to some of its larger communications customers. This announcement comes during a series of quarters in which the company has seen record sales, thanks to rising demand stemming from a perceived economic rebound.

One analyst calls this news, "evidence of a cyclical inventory correction that we'd been expecting and have talked about previously." Nevertheless, the same analyst said that it could take longer than Xilinx had previously estimated for inventory to come back to better levels.

Continue reading Xilinx Cuts Third-Quarter Sales Forecast

Xilinx Cuts Third-Quarter Sales Forecast originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC): Chipmaker Intel Corp. traded up to a new 52 week high today of $20.65. It set its 52 week low of $12.05 back on 2/23/09. The stock is trading higher today ahead of the company's third quarter earnings numbers, which are due out tomorrow following the market close. Analysts are expecting the company to show earnings of 27 cents per share. The company reported a loss of 7 cents per share for its second quarter. The stock closed the day up 1.1% at $20.40, up $0.23 on the day.

Continue reading Some big names setting new highs: INTC, STX, SGP

Some big names setting new highs: INTC, STX, SGP originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Altera's earnings fall year-over-year but manages to match estimates

Altera's earnings fall year-over-year but manages to match estimates originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Marvell Technology forecasts a solid second quarter

Marvell Technology forecasts a solid second quarter originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 29 May 2009 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It has been widely anticipated that the EU would bring new antitrust charges against Intel (NASDAQ: INTC). The FTC and other US authorities are chasing the largest chip company in the world for similar reasons. South Korea has already fined Intel for anti-competitive behavior.

The theory behind the charges is that Intel induced PC companies and their retailers to use its chips and not those from rival AMD (NYSE: AMD). According to The Wall Street Journal, "The European Union launched new antitrust charges against Intel Corp., saying the chip giant paid rebates to a major retailer to encourage it not to carry computers using chips from smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc ."

If the charges are true, it shows the extent to which a company of real size, like Intel, can be its own worst enemy. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) ran into similar problems a decade ago for being too aggressive killing off competition in the browser and media player markets.

The irony of Intel's legal bind is that it almost certainly did not need to pressure or give incentives to keep AMD in a distant second place. It had the balance sheet to keep margin pressure on AMD and the engineering prowess to offer better chips.

Arrogance and carelessness often go with being in first place. This time it appears that it has caught up to Intel.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

EU finally brings antitrust charges against Intel originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Intel Corp.

Continue reading Intel defies skeptics including this one

Intel defies skeptics including this one originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

AMD (NYSE:AMD) announced its sixth straight loss. For the first quarter of 2008, the company reported a net loss of $358 million, or 59 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $611 million, or $1.11 a share, for the year-earlier period.

MarketWatch writes "Revenue was $1.5 billion, up from $1.23 billion for the year-ago period. Analysts had expected the chipmaker to report a loss of 48 cents a share on revenue of $1.52 billion, according to FactSet Research."

The company's survival as an independent company remains at stake. The firm said that second quarter results would be down.

AMD still carries long-term debt of over $5 billion and with operating losses it remains difficult to see how the company can attack an amount of that magnitude while still investing aggressively in R&D. Larger rival Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has the balance sheet and cash flow to continue to launch new chips, many of which have features superior to those of AMD products.

AMD may have only two choice now. One would be to sell the company to a more successful chip operation like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA). The other is to auction off its graphics chip operation ATI, and hope that it can get enough money to help take down a large portion of its long-term debt obligations.

Either way, AMD is unlikely to look that same as it does now by the end of the year.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

AMD (AMD) heads toward oblivion originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Poor Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). The company's stock has been a terrible performer as of late, and the chip maker delivered another batch of bad news to shareholders Monday. According to the following article, AMD intends on eliminating 10% of its work force -- this translates to about 1,800 positions.

Also, business is pretty weak; AMD announced that its sales for the recent quarter would come in around 15% lighter than what was reported last year at this time. Adding insult to injury, the top line missed the expectations of analysts; Wall Street was looking for approximately $1.6 billion in net sales -- AMD thinks it will deliver $1.5 billion.

Make no mistake, AMD is suffering. As the article makes clear, the chip maker is having a hard time generating profits. AMD will be trying its best, I'm sure, to restructure its operations so that it will once again be a force to be reckoned with in the near future. But how near is near?

Continue reading AMD: A big mess right now

AMD: A big mess right now originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) does not seem to be satisfied with the beating it's giving AMD (NYSE:AMD). It wants to bring out an even larger line of chips aimed straight at its rival.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the chip company "gave new details of plans to introduce chips that pack four, six, eight or more electronic brains on a piece of silicon to boost calculating performance."

AMD has a new quad-core chip called Barcelona, and many of the company's plans to recover market share are based on the product.

Intel's new products will make PCs run much faster and will also give its a stronger case in the server market. Some of the new chips are particularly good at running graphics, a market that AMD's ATI unit has done well in over the years. The other company with a large foothold in that industry is Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA).

All of the chip companies have been hurt over the last six months based on the assumption that a slowdown in the economy will cut into PC sales growth. But, Intel is off less than its rivals. Its stock is down less than 20% over the period while AMD and Nvidia are both off more than 40%.

Intel can weather a tough market. It has the balance sheet and gross margins to hold on and spend huge sums on the R&D effort which is behind its newest products. AMD, carrying $5 billion in debt and with no profits, faces real problems keeping up.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Intel (INTC) ups the ante in chip market originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an April bear-call credit spread above the $30 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make an 11.6% return in 4 months as long as INTC is below $30 at April expiration. Intel would have to rise by more than 21% before we would start to lose money.

Continue reading Intel (INTC) loses ground on industry-wide downgrades

Intel (INTC) loses ground on industry-wide downgrades originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Intel Corp. (INTC) raises sales forecast for Q3 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC ) today reported second quarter results that surpassed Wall Street's already high expectations.

Net income increased to $1.28 billion, or 22 cents a share, from $885 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier while revenue advanced 8.4 percent to $8.68 billion, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said in a press release. Analysts had expected the company to earn 19 cents on revenue of $8,54 billion. Shares of the world's largest chipmaker at first rose in after hours but later sold off because of concerns about the gross margins.

Intel said gross margins were 46.9 percent, below the 48 percent it had targetted. That is a key metric that investors watch, so that's why the shares are off about 4 percent. Maybe they will rebound after this evenings earnings conference call.

Nonetheless, investors expect better things to come as Intel continues to gain market share at the expense of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) and benefits from rising IT spending outside the U.S.

"Revenue is going to ramp up dramatically in the second half of the year,'' said Graham Tanaka, president of Tanaka Capital Management in New York, in an interview with Bloomberg News. ``Investors are seeing in the end market that there is a firming in demand and that they're gaining market share.''

The company also gave bullish guidance. It sees third quarter revenue of between $9 billion and $9.6 billion with gross margins of about 52 percent. Analysts had expected revenue of $9.36 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Intel blows away expectations originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Shares of Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) soared more than 28% this year as the chipmaker recouped ground it had lost to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD). At least five Wall Street analysts have raised their ratings on the stock since the start of the year and there's a good chance that their estimates may be overly conservative.

Just how conservative will be apparent later today when the world's largest chipmaker reports second quarter results. Analysts expect earnings of 29 cents on revenue of $8.54 billion, according to Thomson Financial. Revenue is expected to rise 6.6% in the quarter and 4.6% for the year. That seems a little light considering the expected growth in IT spending in places like Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Then there's Intel's new Pennryn family of processors expected next year and the Nehalem processor design.

"We believe that Penryn and Nehalem will challenge AMD, which now has approximately 12 months to bring a new product into the market that leverages its October 2006 merger with ATI," according to an April Gartner report.
"Moreover, AMD must invest smartly to deal with Intel's capital infrastructure or risk falling significantly behind Intel in manufacturing technology and processor design."

But hope spring eternal for Intel shareholders. The stock will get crushed by even the tiniest disappointment. Investors might use such an occurrence as a buying opportunity because like other tech stocks it will come back into fashion within six months.

Why it's time to buy Intel originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Jul 2007 08:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Well I was right on this one -- I was expecting Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) to make $0.22 a share and -- after a reversal of previously accrued taxes which boosted earnings by 5 cents a share -- Intel met analysts' expectations.

While Brian White is providing the details of the conference call, here are some of the highlights. Intel first-quarter profit rose 19% and revenue slid at a slower pace than last year. Specifically, Intel's net income increased to $1.61 billion, or 27 cents a share, from $1.36 billion, or 23 cents, a year earlier. Revenue slipped 1% to $8.85 billion, following a 9% drop last year.

Intel beat its gross margin forecast -- it made 50.1% and forecast 49%. And it predicts a 48% margin in the future -- an uncomfortable drop.

But investors seem to like the results. Shares were up 1.4% during trading today and rose another 2% after-hours.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Intel.

Intel meets the street originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.