Diamonds and Dogs

8/27/18

The chips are back. Nvidia (NVDA) is trading at a new 52 week high while AMD (AMD) is up 10% today and up 150% since April. Besides banging its head against the wall trying to beat Intel, AMD is now expanding into graphic chips with strong adoption of its Polaris-based Radeon RX 500 and Vega-series GPUs among gamers. It has also expanded its Radeon family by bringing Vega to laptops. AMD is also focusing on software by launching drivers for every major game to optimize it on Radeon GPU. Let the good times roll.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) gets a downgrade. The troubled burrito restaurateur is down 4% thanks to a downgrade at Wedbush. After a difficult year or two, Chipotle has been on a rise until today. The analyst Nick Setyan slashed his 12-month price target, citing weaker-than-expected same-store sales growth so far in the third quarter and increased pressure on profits margins through 2020. Setyan said Chipotle's comparable store sales won't grow as fast during the third quarter as what analysts expect, based on his preliminary research. Setyan attributed the slowdown to an outbreak of Clostridium perfringens, a foodborne disease that occurs when food is kept too warm for too long.