Stock Market Today, April 29: Advanced Micro Devices Rises After Analyst Upgrade Points to Data Center GPU Demand Ahead of Earnings

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +4.08%), a designer of CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs, closed Wednesday at $337.11, up 4.30%. The stock climbed during the regular session as analyst upgrades and strong AI chip demand supported optimism ahead of the May 5 Q1 earnings release. Investors will be watching forthcoming results and guidance for data center and AI GPU growth signals.

The company’s trading volume reached 43.2 million shares, which is nearly 13% above compared with its three-month average of 38.3 million shares.

How the markets moved today

The S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.04%) slipped 0.02% to 7,135.95, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC +0.04%) inched up 0.04% to 24,673.24. Among semiconductors, industry peers Intel (INTC +11.93%) closed at $94.75, up 12.06%, and Nvidia (NVDA 1.96%) finished at $209.25, down 1.79%, highlighting mixed reactions across AI-focused chipmakers.

What this means for investors

Advanced Micro Devices shares rose after analyst upgrades, including a price target increase from Susquehanna, pointed to stronger expectations for data center GPU demand tied to AI workloads. The move reflects spending by cloud providers and AI developers building data center capacity, where AMD’s accelerators are used in high-performance computing deployments.

The focus now turns to the company’s May 5 earnings report, which will provide updated data on data center revenue and guidance. The report will offer a clearer view of how GPU shipments and cloud deployments are contributing to growth, as competition from Nvidia and Intel continues to influence pricing and deployment scale across AI infrastructure.