Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (flat), Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%), and DJIA (+0.8%) are mixed at midday.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 487.04, -31.54, -6.08%) is a laggard today despite beating expectations in its Q2 report last night. Overall, this was a strong report from AMD that continues to highlight the robust tailwinds powering its Data Center business across server CPUs and Instinct accelerators. AMD reiterated its Advancing AI outlook for the high-performance and AI computing market to approach $2 trillion by 2030, including approximately $1.4 trillion for Data Center AI accelerators and $220 billion for server CPUs, highlighting the substantial opportunity ahead. The Helios ramp, large customer commitments, strong demand, and upcoming EPYC processors support another step-up in the second half and a strong 2027 growth outlook. Margins remain a watch point as AMD scales its Data Center AI business, which currently carries gross margin slightly below the corporate average, while yields improve during the early Helios ramp. AMD will need to show that accelerating AI revenue can translate into sustained margin expansion as Helios becomes a more meaningful contributor beginning in Q4.

While the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.7%) is lower today, NVIDIA (NVDA 219.16, +7.22, +3.41%) remains a mega-cap standout after SpaceX (SPCX 114.55, -10.78, -8.60%) said on its earnings call that the company plans to build exclusively on NVIDIA's Vera Rubin architecture, which management views as the best AI-computing architecture.