If You Invested $1,000 In AMD When It Unveiled Ryzen Lineup Of Processors, Here's How Much You Would Have Now

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD is a comeback story. After remaining for a while under the shadows of its bigger rival, Intel Corporation INTC, things began looking up for the company in 2017.

Here's a look at how much an astute investor, who spotted the turnaround story early on, would have made by now.

AMD Rises With Ryzen: AMD shares were locked in a lackluster trading range from 2008 to 2016, reflecting fundamental weakness.
The turnaround came with the launch of the Ryzen lineup x86-64 microprocessors for desktop, mobile, servers and embedded platforms.

AMD lifted the curtains on the Ryzen processors at its "New Horizon" summit in December 2016. The second-gen Ryzen processors, based on the Zen+ microarchitecture, were announced in April 2018.

AMD's share of the x86 CPU market swelled from 17.5% in the third quarter of 2016 to 39.8% in the third quarter of 2021. During the same time period, Intel's share fell from 82.5% to 60.2%.

Related Link: Why AMD Is Looking 'Solid' Into The Year-End

AMD has also made strong inroads into the server processor market with its EPYC processors. Added to that, data center and gaming processor revenues are also seeing a strong upward trajectory.

A case in point is AMD's announcement at its Accelerated Data Center event Monday that it has clinched a deal with Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Inc. FB to supply data center chips.

At the event, the company showcased its new lineup of Zen 4 and EPYC processors. It presented a bird's-eye view of its Zen 4c chipset that would power the cloud processes. The company also said its Genoa and Bergamo processors, coming in 2022 and 2023, will bring as many as 96 cores and 128 cores per chip, respectively.

Commenting on the announcement, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann said, "The CPU announcements we see as disrupting Intel's roadmaps and placing AMD in the pole position to capture over half of the data center market by 2023."

AMD Generates Bumper Returns: After an extended period of sideways move around lower levels, AMD shares took off in early 2018 and have been broadly higher since then.

On Dec. 13, 2016, the day the Ryzen processor was first announced, AMD shares were at $10.54. The Ryzen 1000 series was introduced in February 2017 and launched on March 2, 2017.

A $1,000 dollar invested in AMD in late 2016 would have fetched an investor 95 AMD shares. The same 95 shares are worth $14,265.20 at Monday's closing price. This translates to a return of about 1,427% over an investment period of about five years.

With Intel falling back due to its product missteps and AMD going from strength to strength with its product innovation and competitiveness, an AMD investor can brace for an upward trajectory in both fundamentals and the stock.

AMD Price Action: At last check, AMD shares were down 4.01% at $142.95, although they are up about 64% for the year-to-date.

Photo: Courtesy AMD