HEXUS.sharewatch: AMD and NVIDIA recover lost ground

To paraphrase Harold Wilson, a week is a long time in share prices. Last week both NVIDIA and especially AMD suffered significant falls in their share prices, with sentiment towards them wavering for a variety of reasons.

We speculated that a major cause of investor unease towards AMD was the reported association of its former CEO with a major investigation into insider trading. While his most recent employers - GlobalFoundries - moved quickly to distance themselves from him, we wondered if AMD would try to do the same.

The lack of any reports offering any further bad news for AMD in this matter, in the intervening week, seems to have reassured investors to some extent, with a good chunk of the lost share value having been recovered.

NVIDIA, meanwhile, exceeded general expectations with a strong third quarter. Citing surprisingly robust demand for all categories of its products, NVIDIA's strong quarter was especially impressive given the increasingly stiff competition it faces from its only discrete graphics rival - AMD.

In contrast, big kid on the semiconductor block - Intel - was the only share on our list to suffer a fall, albeit a small one, last week. This may well have been influenced by the commencement of yet another anti-trust lawsuit against Intel, this time from within the US.

On a final note for followers of psychological milestones; last week was the first week since the Lehman excrement hit the global economic ventilator that the Dow Jones, FTSE 100 and NASDAQ closed above 10,000, 5,000 and 2,000 respectively, for what it's worth.