UPDATE: Nvidia, AMD close lower as cryptocurrency miners' thirst for graphics chips doubted (谈股论金)  468次阅读

作者: 雅歌 , 发表于: 2017-11-29 (2561天前) @ 雅歌

UPDATE: Nvidia, AMD close lower as cryptocurrency miners' thirst for graphics chips doubted

5:03 pm ET November 28, 2017 (MarketWatch)
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By Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch

Analyst says mining of digital currency is moving toward software-focused approach

Shares of chip makers Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. closed lower Tuesday after an analyst reiterated what the companies had already been telegraphing: The cryptocurrency-mining market for graphics chipsets, while legitimate, may not be as huge as some had anticipated.

Nvidia (NVDA) shares fell 1.6% to close at $210.71, after touching an intraday low of $208.24, while AMD (AMD) shares finished down 3.3% at $11.17, trading as low as $11 on the day, and swung to a year-to-date loss. For the year, Nvidia shares are up 97% while AMD shares are down 1.5%. In comparison, the PHLX Semiconductor Index is up nearly 46% and the S&P 500 index has gained more than 17% in 2017.

In a note released late Monday, Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh said the computing complexity for mining digital currency is creating a shift from a hardware-based approach, which can rely on graphics processing units, to a software-based approach, which requires large pools of miners or cloud-based mining with large application-specific integrated circuits. Rakesh has buy ratings on both Nvidia and AMD, with a $225 price target on Nvidia and a $17 price target on AMD.

"We believe that while the explosion of bitcoin and ethereum pricing has provided a [near-term] tailwind for Nvidia and AMD, we believe crypto-mining may be a significantly smaller driver in 2018," Rakesh said.

Read:Nvidia and AMD aren't at serious risk from crypto concerns, analysts say (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-and-amd-arent-at-serious-risk-from-crypto-concerns-analysts-say-2017-09-11)

The price of one bitcoin has skyrocketed this year even as naysayers have called it a bubble (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amd-stock-still-volatile-despite-fresh-stability-in-chip-makers-business-2017-10-24). Bitcoin has come within a hair of $10,000 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-sets-new-record-sets-sights-on-10000-milestone-2017-11-26) and is up more than 750% for the year. Ether, the cryptocurrency running on the Etherium network that is credited more with the use of GPUs for mining, has bounded even stronger, skyrocketing 5,800% this year to trade around $470 a coin.

Over the year as cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether soared in value and graphics chips flew off the shelves and resold at premiums online, AMD has played down demand for its chipsets while Nvidia embraced it more.

See also: Nvidia is more bullish on cryptocurrency than AMD (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-more-bullish-on-cryptocurrency-than-amd-2017-08-10)

But even Nvidia as of late has cooled in its enthusiasm. In its most recent earnings report, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang called crypto exposure a "small, but not zero, part of our business" after estimated revenue for chipsets used for mining fell by half to about $70 million in the third quarter from the second quarter.

Estimated graphics-card sales for crypto-mining only account for a tiny fraction of sales at AMD and Nvidia. Rakesh estimates those sales make up about 10% of revenue at AMD and about 6% at Nvidia.

"We believe increasing mining complexity in crypto-mining is driving mining away from CPUs/GPUs to farms and clouds of broad ASIC pools," Rakesh noted. "Given the volatility of crypto-mining trends, while there could be softness in 2018 we believe [long-term] it should be a positive for AMD and Nvidia, with a focus on core PC/NB and data center markets."

Don't miss: AMD stock still volatile, but company looking more stable (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amd-stock-still-volatile-despite-fresh-stability-in-chip-makers-business-2017-10-24)

The core focus for growth at Nvidia is not its mature graphics-card business but the AI-focused hardware it sells to data centers. Out of its $2.64 billion in revenue for the third quarter, Nvidia reported data center sales more than doubled to $501 million (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-earnings-roar-past-street-estimates-but-shares-struggle-for-direction-2017-11-09). Meanwhile, AMD's enterprise sales for the most recent quarter were about flat year-over-year, at $824 million out of $1.64 billion in total revenue.

-Wallace Witkowski; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 28, 2017 17:03 ET (22:03 GMT)