U.S. Stock Market Sentiment Slightly Declines

Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst

AMD+2.35%

BAH+6.76%

GS-3.75%

Source: Benzinga

Updated: 1h ago

0mins

Source: Benzinga

Market Sentiment Index: The CNN Money Fear & Greed Index recorded a reading of 52.4 on Friday, remaining in the 'Neutral' zone, which indicates a slight decline from the previous reading of 52.8, reflecting cautious investor sentiment.
Stock Market Performance: The Dow Jones index fell over 250 points on Friday, closing at 49,098.71, down 0.5% for the week, while the S&P 500 rose slightly by 0.03% to 6,915.61, indicating a divergence in market trends.
Stock Volatility: Goldman Sachs (GS) shares dropped around 4% on Friday, while Intel (INTC) plummeted approximately 17% after issuing a weak first-quarter outlook, highlighting concerns over the tech sector's performance.
Economic Data Update: The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 56.4 in January from a prior reading of 54.0 and December's 52.9, indicating a significant improvement in consumer confidence that may positively impact future spending.

AMD

$259.68+Infinity%1D

Analyst Views on AMD

Wall Street analysts forecast AMD stock price to rise over the next 12 months. According to Wall Street analysts, the average 1-year price target for AMD is 284.10 USD with a low forecast of 200.00 USD and a high forecast of 377.00 USD. However, analyst price targets are subjective and often lag stock prices, so investors should focus on the objective reasons behind analyst rating changes, which better reflect the company's fundamentals.

36 Analyst Rating

27 Buy

9 Hold

0 Sell

Strong Buy

Current: 253.730

Low

200.00

Averages

284.10

High

377.00

Current: 253.730

Low

200.00

Averages

284.10

High

377.00

Bernstein

Stacy Rasgon

Market Perform

maintain

$200 -> $225

2026-01-21

New

Reason

Bernstein

Stacy Rasgon

Price Target

$200 -> $225

AI Analysis

2026-01-21

New

maintain

Market Perform

Reason

Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon raised the firm's price target on AMD to $225 from $200 and keeps a Market Perform rating on the shares ahead of quarterly results. The firm is adjusting estimates to incorporate better server / weaker PC assumptions. Bernstein now models AMD's Q4 2025 at $9.7B/$1.31, up slightly from $9.6B/$1.30 prior, and mostly in line with consensus at $9.6B/$1.32.

Needham

Buy

maintain

$28 -> $30

2026-01-20

Reason

Needham

Price Target

$28 -> $30

2026-01-20

maintain

Buy

Reason

Needham raised the firm's price target on Riot Platforms (RIOT) to $30 from $28 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm cites the company having signed a 25MW lease with AMD (AMD) at its newly acquired Rockdale site where it previously did not have full land ownership, and while the lease economics are significantly lower than peers, the yield on cost is attractive as capex is expected to be only $3.6m/MW, the analyst tells investors in a research note.

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BTIG

Buy

maintain

$28

2026-01-16

Reason

BTIG

Price Target

$28

2026-01-16

maintain

Buy

Reason

BTIG reiterates a Buy rating on Riot Platforms (RIOT) with a $28 price target after the company announced a colocation lease with AMD (AMD). While the pricing on a per megawatt year basis is lower than previous contracts seen, Riot is paying significantly less in capex than the market standard as it is leveraging existing infrastructure at the site, the analyst tells investors in a research note. BTIG says that with the Rockdale land now owned and soon to be generating high performance compute revenue, Riot has two blue chip data center locations with roughly 1 gigawatt of additional IT capacity to be contracted. It sees the company becoming the "dominant" HPC infrastructure provider. Riot is a top pick in the first half of 2026 at BTIG.

Cantor Fitzgerald

Overweight

maintain

$25 -> $31

2026-01-16

Reason

Cantor Fitzgerald

Price Target

$25 -> $31

2026-01-16

maintain

Overweight

Reason

Cantor Fitzgerald raised the firm's price target on Riot Platforms (RIOT) to $31 from $25 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. Riot on Friday announced it has acquired the land of its Rockdale location and signed a data center lease agreement with AMD (AMD), which could be the first of many deals that Riot could land, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Cantor thinks the likelihood of AMD excercising its options for 175 MW of additional capacity will increase as the capacity begins to come online.

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is a global semiconductor company. The Company is focused on high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies. Its segments include Data Center, Client and Gaming, and Embedded. Data Center segment includes artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators, microprocessors (CPUs) for servers, graphics processing units (GPUs), accelerated processing units (APUs), data processing units (DPUs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), smart network interface Cards (SmartNICs) and Adaptive system-on-Chip (SoC) products for data centers. Client and Gaming segment includes CPUs, APUs, chipsets for desktops and notebooks, discrete GPUs, and semi-custom SoC products and development services. Embedded segment includes embedded CPUs, GPUs, APUs, FPGAs, system on modules (SOMs), and Adaptive SoC products. It markets and sells its products under the AMD trademark. Its products include AMD EPYC, AMD Ryzen, AMD Ryzen PRO, Virtex UltraScale+, and others.

About the author

Emily J. Thompson

Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.