AMD’s April Rally Faces a Wall Street Schism Ahead of Earnings

AMD shares soar 64% in April near 52-week high, fueled by Intel's strong earnings and hyperscaler AI spending, but analysts clash over valuation and risks.

Advanced Micro Devices has just completed one of its strongest months on record, with shares surging more than 64 percent in April alone to trade at around 289 euros. The stock now sits just a whisker below its 52-week high of 294.95 euros, a level reached only a week ago. On a year-over-year basis, the chipmaker’s market value has more than tripled. Yet beneath the surface of this euphoric run, a fierce debate is raging among analysts about whether the rally is justified or has simply run too far, too fast.

The Intel Catalyst

The immediate spark for AMD’s latest leg higher came not from its own news flow but from the quarterly report of archrival Intel. Intel’s revenue of $13.58 billion smashed its own forecast, driven by an explosion in demand for server processors. That signal resonated directly with AMD’s business: as artificial intelligence workloads shift from training to inference and multi-agent systems, traditional CPUs are regaining prominence. AMD’s EPYC server processors are among the prime beneficiaries of this trend. Server CPU prices rose roughly 20 percent in the first quarter, while client CPUs climbed about 15 percent, underscoring the pricing power returning to the market.

Hyperscalers Fuel the Fire

The broader macro backdrop for AMD has rarely looked more favorable. The four largest US hyperscalers — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft — are planning to invest a combined $725 billion in AI infrastructure by 2026, a staggering sum that dwarfs prior years. Meta alone raised its capital expenditure plans to between $125 billion and $145 billion, while Microsoft is targeting around $190 billion and Alphabet between $180 billion and $190 billion. For AMD, this spending wave translates directly into orders for server processors and AI accelerators, the core components of modern data centers.

Some analysts see this as the beginning of a sustained boom. UBS raised its price target to $455, the highest on Wall Street, while maintaining a buy rating. Susquehanna set a target of $375, citing growth potential from AMD’s upcoming MI350 and MI450/Helios GPU generations. DA Davidson’s Gil Luria boosted his 2026 revenue estimate by $2 billion, anticipating significant price increases across AMD’s product lineup.

The Bear Case Gains Traction

Not everyone is convinced. Northland Securities downgraded AMD to “Market Perform” on April 27, ending an 11-year streak of buy recommendations. The firm set a price target of just $260, well below the consensus, warning of structural limits on gross margins and intensifying competitive pressure from Intel. Citi echoes this caution with a $248 target. The skeptics also point to potential headwinds from a possible cooling of AI investment in 2027, which could puncture the current narrative of endless growth.

Political Headwinds and OpenAI Jitters

Beyond the market dynamics, political risks continue to weigh on AMD’s outlook. US export controls cost the company roughly $440 million last year on its MI308 chip model. CEO Lisa Su has been actively engaging with policymakers, recently meeting with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to discuss AI regulation and America’s technological leadership. These geopolitical uncertainties add a layer of complexity that pure financial models cannot easily capture.

The fragility of the current sentiment was on display late last week. Reports that OpenAI had missed internal user growth targets were enough to briefly knock AMD’s shares lower, a reminder that even the most powerful AI narrative can be vulnerable to sudden shifts in perception.

Earnings Day Looms

All eyes are now on May 5, when AMD reports its first-quarter results. The market expects revenue of approximately $9.85 billion, representing year-over-year growth of about 34 percent. The data center segment will be under particular scrutiny: in the fourth quarter of 2025, that division posted a record $5.38 billion in revenue. For the full year 2026, some analysts project GPU-related revenue of up to $17 billion, underpinned by long-term supply agreements with major AI developers.

On Polymarket, traders currently assign an 85 percent probability that AMD will beat earnings expectations. If the server CPU momentum holds, it could silence the bears — at least for now. But with the stock trading nearly 46 percent above its 50-day moving average and a divided Wall Street watching every data point, the margin for error has rarely been thinner.