advanced micro devices inc went against the grain this past week as shares not only outperformed airivals like nvidia corp on friday but finished the week higher when the rest of the sector sold off amd amd shares rose 24 friday to close at 11582 or for a 26 gain on week while nvidia nvda shares gained 04 on the day to close at 44680 but finished at a loss of 44 on the week in comparison the phlx semiconductor index sox declined 02 friday for a 4 weekly drop nvidia reports its earnings after the market close on aug 23 tech stocks had a rough midweek their recent outsized gains becoming outsized losses with respect to the broader market after fitch ratings cut its top us credit rating to aa from aaa late tuesday high flyers like nvidia with its more than 200 gains on the year and chiprelated stocks with the sox index’s more than 45 rally all fell sharply on wednesday that move included a drop for amd shares which had been on the rise after hours tuesday following an earnings beat but while that blow left the rest of the sector dazed for the rest of the week and some analysts questioned if the chip maker’s expectations are too high a wave of analyst support for amd followed and turned it into one of the week’s few winning chip stocks following benchmark analyst cody acree calling amd “among the best positioned companies” to take advantage of ai morgan stanley analyst joseph moore in a thursdaydated note released to nonclients friday said the “post quarter selloff” of amd “creates an important buying opportunity” moore has an overweight rating on amd and a 138 price target “the amd quarter should have been a relief given near universal sentiment that they would guide well below expectations for servers they didn’t and that their expectation for margin recovery in pcs was unrealistic it wasn’t” moore said in the note other chip makers like qualcomm inc qcom didn’t have it as easy with shares finishing the week down 62 after the phone handset supplier reported it was still dealing with inventory drawdowns in the coveted ai datacenter category moore said interest in amd’s rollout of mi300 class cpu  gpus “substantial demand from customers is known but the timing of qualifications remains a key variable” moore said “there will be inevitably be surprises when bringing up new silicon” “there will also be a competitive reaction to first silicon for example we don’t think that nvidia will price inference products aggressively to compete with powerpoint presentations about chips that aren’t out but they will be fully engaged when amd is trying to convert initial interest into wins” “the supply chain is building to the best case and this is a chip with the longest manufacturing lead times that we have ever seen at 8 months or so in a market where customer interest is the highest we have ever seen” moore noted of the 45 analysts surveyed by factset 30 have buy ratings and 15 have hold ratings along with an average price target of 14042 in the broader market the sp 500 index spx declined 05 friday to finish the week down 23 and the techheavy nasdaq composite comp slipped 04 to finish the week down 29