HEXUS.sharewatch: AMD rises while Intel and NVIDIA fall

The big news in the semiconductor sector last week concerned Intel giving AMD 60 days to address its concerns over the spin-off of its manufacturing operations or face having its rights under the cross license agreement between the two companies terminated.

AMD countered by saying it hasn't done anything wrong and questioning whether Intel could even deliver on its threat anyway.

Intel responded with its continued assertion that GLOBALFOUNDRIES - the manufacturing company spun-off from AMD - doesn't qualify as a subsidiary and, by the way, it can deliver on its threat.

Ultimately it will all come down to the lawyers and probably the courts, but investors seem to be favouring AMD on this one, driving its shares up by six percent last week, while Intel's lost a tiny bit.

Most stocks took a dive right at the end of last week as another wave of pessimism hit home. However, the US government has announced the creation of another toxic loan purchase programme that could be worth up to a trillion dollars.

That seems to have cheered everyone up a bit today as both US markets were up over three percent at time of writing.