AMD soars to a 5-month high (AMD)

March 21, 2019 at 14:31 PM EDT

Fabrizio Bensch/REUTERS

AMD shares on Thursday spiked to their best level in over five months.
They have gained about 20% since Google on Tuesday said it would use the chipmaker's graphics processing units for its new streaming-video-game service.
Watch AMD trade live.

AMD shares on Thursday soared over 8% to their best level in more than five months as traders continued to pile in following Tuesday's announcement that Google would be using the chipmaker's graphics processing units for its streaming-video-game service Stadia.

Shares have gained nearly 20% since Monday's close, but Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at the financial technology and analytics firm S3 Partners, says there's still no signs of short-sellers running for cover.

"Seeing mixed activity today – lots of shorting and covering," he told Markets Insider in an email. On Tuesday, Dusaniwsky noted the move looked like "a FOMO rally with buyers looking to get in before they miss the early and chunky profits."

Meanwhile Jefferies analyst Mark Lapacis said the presence of Lisa Su at Google's developer's conference was a hint that a stronger bond between the two companies could be on the horizon.

He noted that the "conspicuous absence of Intel from the announcement suggests a close relationship between AMD and Google and the increasing likelihood that Google will ultimately announce that it will use AMD EPYC 2 server MPUs."

A deal between Google and AMD on servers would be more important than the GPU announcement for gaming because it represents a $25 billion-a-year market, according to Lapacis. He says the consensus only sees AMD grabbing 10% of that market over the next 12 to 24 months.

AMD shares have gained more than 50% this year, including Thursday's advance.

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