Intel leads chip stocks higher as broader market dips

Jefferies started coverage on Ambiq Micro with a Buy rating and a $90 price target, sending the semiconductor firm into the spotlight on Wednesday. Analyst Kevin Garrigan wrote that Ambiq's SPOT architecture runs standard CMOS at a 2-5x power advantage on edge devices, where available power limits AI, and said the company is moving from a niche ultra-low-power MCU supplier toward an edge AI compute platform. Garrigan noted that Ambiq's top three customers, believed to be Google, Garmin and WHOOP, made up 77.5% of sales in the second quarter, but revenue outside those top three grew 143% year-over-year while overall revenue rose 90% year-over-year. He forecast revenue rising from $72.5M in FY25 to $249M in FY28, a 51% CAGR, with non-GAAP gross margin expanding from 45.0% to 48.7%, operating margin improving from -33.2% to 0.7%, and non-GAAP EPS moving from -$2.62 to +$0.53. Ambiq holds about $367M of cash and no debt, which Garrigan said funds the roadmap through breakeven.

Global semiconductor sales surpassed $1 trillion through August for the first time in history, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported. Sales totaled $159.7 billion in August, up 8% sequentially from July's $147.9 billion and up 144.3% year over year from August 2025's $65.4 billion. SIA president and CEO Michael Robbins said the global market grew for the 18th consecutive month in August, with sales into the Americas, the Asia Pacific, and China driving strong and sustained year-to-year growth, and the association projects sales to hit more than $1.6 trillion by the end of 2026. The August figure followed an exceptional first half of 2026, when global semiconductor sales reached $403.3 billion in the second quarter and $298.5 billion in the first quarter, representing sequential increases of 33.1% and 25%, respectively. Against that backdrop, Zacks named four chip stocks with upside: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, Analog Devices, NVIDIA Corporation and MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said overall data center demand remains "very strong" and that she is seeing "strong demand signals" across the company's product portfolio during a visit to Seoul on Wednesday to meet with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, according to a Reuters report, a day after she predicted in Taipei that chip demand would stay strong for years. AMD shares are trading at a record high and are up 200% year to date. Citi analyst Atif Malik raised his price target on AMD to $800 from $575 on Tuesday, citing demand for Meta's new AI agent known as Muse and calling AMD the primary beneficiary of a CPU renaissance, with Meta among the largest customers of AMD's server business. Malik said he expects the CPU total addressable market to expand from $29 billion in 2025 to $300 billion in 2030, a 60% CAGR, with AMD the key beneficiary and Intel a secondary one.