Q4 2018 stocks: AMD on the rise, Nvidia crashes hard

AMD and Nvidia made considerable efforts to meet the outstanding GPU demand in early 2018, but the crypto crash hit the two companies hard in late 2018. (Source: MarketWatch)

Despite the steep losses in the GPU sector suffered by both AMD and Nvidia, the red team managed to see stock appreciation thanks to the CPU division. Nvidia was not that fortunate and took a hard dive in Q3 and Q4, but things should get better once the RTX 2000 GPUs see more adoption in 2019. Last, but not least, Intel virtually flat-lined throughout the entire 2018 because of the 14 nm CPU shortages.

by Bogdan Solca, 2019/01/02

2019 is here and everybody is looking forward to a glorious new year full of technological breakthroughs and ingenious designs. While 2018 had its moments, the year was mostly marked by the crypto crash that especially impacted AMD’s and Nvidia’s stocks. According to the latest statistics, the last quarter of 2018 was quite the disaster for Nvidia, while AMD managed to emerge unscathed thanks to its CPU division, which is also keeping Intel on its toes.

Both AMD and Nvidia suffered significant stock depreciation throughout 2018, but AMD’s Ryzen 2000-series CPUs kept the red team afloat despite all the GPU problems. MarketWatch informs that AMD’s stocks were up 79.6% in Q4 2018 and the company even managed to break into the Nasdaq-100 index. Nvidia, on the other hand, did not benefit from its ancillary divisions and the stocks tumbled 54%, making it the worst performing company in the S&P 500 index throughout Q4 2018. As far as Intel is concerned, the 14 nm CPU shortages caused an almost non-existent growth in 2019, as the stocks only went up less than 0.5% throughout 2018.

AMD is expected to further boost the share appreciation with the launch of the Ryzen 3000-series CPUs in the first quarters of 2019. However, the red team is valuated at around $18.4 billion and has a long way to go before even matching Nvidia’s $81.4 billion or Intel’s $219.5 market caps. Nvidia’s prospects for 2019 remain quite limited, although the company is actively broadening its focus with A.I.-related technologies.