CCM Investment Advisers disclosed a new position in Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -7.78%) in its October 10, 2025 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The estimated $11.13 million purchase occurred in the third quarter of 2025.

What happened

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated October 10, 2025, CCM Investment Advisers established a new position in Advanced Micro Devices, purchasing 68,820 shares. The estimated transaction value was $11.13 million for the period ended September 30, 2025. The position represented 1.1% of the fund’s $1.02 billion in reportable U.S. equity assets.

What else to know

CCM Investment Advisers’ new AMD stake represents 1.1% of 13F assets, and is outside the fund’s top five positions.

The company’s top holdings after the filing as of September 30, 2025 are:

• NASDAQ:NVDA: $40.55 million (4.0% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:AVGO: $36.12 million (3.6% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:GOOGL: $35.72 million (3.5% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:MSFT: $33.70 million (3.3% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:AAPL: $32.84 million (3.2% of AUM)

As of October 9, 2025, AMD shares were priced at $232.89, up 36.18% over the prior 12 months, outperforming the S&P 500 by 17.67 percentage points over the past year.

Advanced Micro Devices reported $29.6 billion in trailing 12-month revenue, and $2.8 billion in net income for the trailing 12 months ending June 28, 2025.

The company’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is 28.57, and its enterprise value to EBITDA multiple is 48.83 as of October 10, 2025.

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is a leading global semiconductor company specializing in high-performance computing and graphics solutions. The company’s strategy centers on innovation in CPUs, GPUs, and data center technology, targeting growth in the enterprise, cloud, and gaming sectors. AMD’s competitive edge is driven by its advanced product portfolio and strong relationships with major technology partners worldwide.

The company produces x86 microprocessors, discrete and integrated GPUs, server and embedded processors, and semi-custom system-on-chip (SoC) products for computing, graphics, data center, and gaming applications.

IMAGE SOURCE: AMD.

AMD generates revenue primarily from the sale of processors and graphics products to OEMs, cloud service providers, system integrators, and independent distributors. It serves original equipment manufacturers, cloud service providers, system integrators, and online retailers in the global computing, data center, artificial intelligence, and gaming markets.

Foolish take

For CCM Investment Advisers to begin investing in AMD at this time is noteworthy because stocks in the artificial intelligence sector have been hot for some time now. Moreover, CCM already held shares in AI chip leader Nvidia, so why did it jump into AMD now?

The AI market went into overdrive in the third quarter of 2025 after Nvidia announced blockbuster deals with Intel and OpenAI. The British government also partnered with OpenAI in the quarter to expand AI infrastructure capacity in the country.

A rising tide lifts all boats, as the saying goes, so CCM could be anticipating AMD’s growth amidst this environment. In fact, AMD announced its own partnership with OpenAI on Oct. 6. The partnership involves the semiconductor giant providing a massive number of its products to the ChatGPT creator, and is projected to deliver billions of dollars in revenue to AMD over the coming years.

As a result, AMD shares soared to an all-time high exceeding $240 on Oct. 9. While the company is a good investment and the stock has pulled back from its record high, it’s worth waiting to see if the share price retreats further before deciding to buy.

Glossary

13F assets: The value of U.S. equity securities reported by institutional investment managers in quarterly SEC Form 13F filings.
Stake: The amount of ownership or shares an investor or fund holds in a particular company.
Top holdings: The largest investments by value within a fund’s portfolio.
AUM (Assets Under Management): The total market value of assets a fund or investment manager oversees on behalf of clients.
Outperforming: Achieving a higher return compared to a benchmark index or peer group over a specific period.
Trailing twelve months (TTM): The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.
Forward price-to-earnings ratio: A valuation metric comparing a company’s current share price to its projected future earnings per share.
Enterprise value to EBITDA multiple: A valuation ratio comparing a company’s total value to its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
System-on-Chip (SoC): An integrated circuit that combines multiple components, such as CPU, GPU, and memory, onto a single chip.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs): Companies that produce parts or equipment used in another company’s end products.
Cloud service providers: Companies offering computing resources, storage, or services over the internet to businesses or individuals.
Data center: A facility housing computer systems and associated components for storing, processing, and managing large amounts of data.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) make investing simple. With a few clicks of a button, you could quickly gain the opportunity to profit alongside a diversified collection of high-quality businesses.

In addition, select ETFs offer relatively easy ways to cash in on powerful economic trends, such as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Well-chosen funds could also provide you with bountiful and reliable passive income.

Read on to see why AI chip suppliers and high-yield dividend payers are particularly attractive stocks to buy today.

Image source: Getty Images.

This ETF could help you profit from the AI revolution

The world runs on semiconductors. Laptops, smartphones, medical devices, modern cars and trucks, airplanes, satellites, and solar panels are just some of the products that require these essential components to function properly.

The microchips that underpin computer technology of all sorts are becoming even more valuable in the age of AI. The global semiconductor industry is poised to grow from $697 billion in 2025 to $1 trillion by 2030 and $2 trillion by 2040, according to Deloitte. Chip suppliers are set to see their sales and profits soar in the coming years.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX -2.95%) offers you a convenient way to claim your share of this enormous and rapidly expanding market.

The fund is managed by BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment companies, with assets under management of $12.5 trillion as of the end of the second quarter.

The ETF holds stakes in 30 stocks, all of which are key cogs in the global semiconductor supply chain. Leading chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, Broadcom, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing stand among the fund’s largest holdings.

The ETF’s annual expense ratio is reasonable at 0.34%. That amounts to $3.40 for every $1,000 invested.

All told, the iShares Semiconductor ETF is a relatively effortless and low-cost way to position yourself to benefit from the AI-fueled chip boom.

This dividend ETF can help you build a lucrative passive income stream

Dividends are the sweet rewards of investing. A swell of cash payments pouring into your account year after year can drastically reduce your financial worries. Dividends can also help you pay for the things you enjoy.

Moreover, dividend stocks can add ballast to your diversified investment portfolio. Stocks that regularly pay out cash to their investors are generally less volatile than those that don’t. Dividend-payers also tend to outperform non-dividend-payers during bear markets. Better still, companies that can consistently grow their cash distributions often see their share prices rise in kind.

As its name suggests, the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM -0.09%) offers convenient access to a broad collection of income-generating stocks with above-average payouts. The fund’s annualized dividend yield of roughly 2.6% is more than twice that of the S&P 500 Index, making it an excellent source of passive income.

With positions in roughly 580 stocks across a range of sectors, the ETF also provides investors with the wealth-protecting benefits of diversification. Top holdings, which include dividend stalwarts such as JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil, and Walmart, further help to mitigate the risks for shareholders.

Best of all, Vanguard charges ultralow fees, so nearly all the ETF’s gains will be passed on to investors. The Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF has an expense ratio of 0.06%, which amounts to just $0.60 per $1,000 invested annually.

The Trump administration seems intent on controlling Intel’s ability to make key business decisions around its floundering foundry business unit.

According to reporting from the Financial Times, at a Deutsche Bank conference on Thursday, Intel’s CFO David Zinsner shared new details about the company’s recent deal with the Trump administration, which gave the U.S. government a 10% equity stake.

The deal was structured in a way to penalize Intel if it spins out its foundry business unit, which makes custom chips for outside customers, within the next few years.

Last week’s deal included a five-year warrant that would allow the U.S. government to take an additional 5% of Intel, at $20 a share, if the company held less than 51% equity in its foundry business. Zinsner said he expects that warrant to expire.

“I think from the government’s perspective, they were aligned with that; they didn’t want to see us take the business and spin it off or sell it to somebody,” he said.

Zinsner added that the company received $5.7 billion in cash on Wednesday, as a result of last week’s deal, according to Reuters. (That cash comes from the remaining grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act.)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today that the deal was still being ironed out.

Intel declined to comment on the deal beyond Zinsner’s remarks.

This deal structure is clearly a testament to the Trump administration’s desire to bring more chip manufacturing to the United States as many players in the industry turn to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s offshore manufacturing instead.

But this warrant also forces Intel to keep a business unit that is losing money. Intel Foundry reported an operating income loss of $3.1 billion during the second quarter and has been a source of strife for the semiconductor business.

There have been calls from analysts, board members, and investors alike to spin out the struggling foundry unit, which looked like it might actually happen last fall, before Intel Foundry’s architect, former CEO Pat Gelsinger, retired suddenly in December.

Nvidia (NVDA 4.08%) shares surged 4% to close at $170.70 on Tuesday, outpacing broader market indices as investors responded positively to news about graphics processing unit (GPU) exports to China resuming. The chipmaker received assurances from the Trump administration that it can once again export its H20 GPU to the Chinese market.

While Nvidia rallied, major indices showed mixed performance. The S&P 500 fell slightly, dropping 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite remained relatively flat with its 0.18% gain, highlighting Nvidia’s strong individual performance against market headwinds. Among competitors, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 6.55%) showed even stronger performance, jumping 6.4% to $155.61, while Intel (INTC -1.59%) declined 1.63% to $22.92, highlighting the diverging fortunes within the semiconductor sector.

Nvidia’s trading volume reached approximately 229 million shares, below its 200-day average of approximately 253 million shares, according to Barchart data. Technically, the stock has established positive momentum by reclaiming its 200-day moving average of around $131.40, with the shares now trading nearly 30% above this key technical indicator.

The company’s renewed access to the crucial Chinese market, combined with ongoing sector rotation into artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investments, appears to be solidifying Nvidia’s position as the premier semiconductor manufacturer in the rapidly expanding AI space.

Shares in Aehr Test Systems (AEHR -3.15%) slumped by 22.2% in the first half of 2025, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. That figure may surprise investors, not least because it’s a long, long way from telling the whole story of a stock that declined 56% in the first three months of 2025 only to rise 77.4% in the last three months of the half-year.

Aehr Test Systems’ wild ride in 2025

The fall and rise of the stock mirrors the narrative around it and its end markets. The company recently reported its full-year financial 2025 earnings. For the sake of clarity, its financial year ends on May 30. Going back to focusing on the first six months of the calendar year, Aehr started the year with most investors thinking of it as a company focused on the silicon carbide (SiC) wafer-level burn-in (WLBI) market, and with good reason, because the SiC WLBI market accounted for 90% of its sales in its financial year 2024.

ON Semiconductor (ON 0.40%) has previously been named as a significant customer, and its sales slowdown has mirrored a broader slowdown in the SiC market, principally in the electric vehicle (EV) market. A combination of an ongoing relatively high interest rate and a correction from a previous boom in EV spending meant Aehr couldn’t rely on the SiC WLBI market for growth in its financial 2025.

Indeed, CEO Gayn Erickson recently outlined that SiC WLBI “made up less than 40% of our revenue this fiscal ’25.” As such, the story of Aehr’s first three months was disappointing, as its EV end market for SiC WLBI equipment continued to weaken.

Aehr Test Systems develops new markets

The significant turnaround in the stock’s fortunes in 2025 occurred in the third-quarter earnings report in April, when management announced it was expanding into new markets and was on track to generate 35% of its revenue (later confirmed) from the artificial intelligence (AI) processor burn-in market. In addition, management said it had “four customers representing over 10% of revenue, and three of these are new markets,” including WLBI of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor supply to the automotive market.

Image source: Getty Images.

Furthermore, on the fourth-quarter earnings release, Erickson said it had secured “a major hyperscaler” as a first production AI customer in the packaged part burn-in (PPBI) market.

While Aehr isn’t naming these significant customers, a slide deck of its customers includes names like Microsoft, Alphabet‘s Google, Nvidia, ON Semiconductor, and Infineon, among many others.

Where next for Aehr Test Systems?

Management believes its AI end markets are potentially 3 to 5 times larger than its traditional SiC markets, and that optimism is fueling the current stock price strength.

Shares of Arm Holdings (ARM 0.29%) continued to march higher in the first half of the year, benefiting from the broader tailwinds in artificial intelligence (AI), market share gains, and solid growth in its earnings report.

Arm, which licenses its central processing unit (CPU) architecture to partners like Apple and Nvidia, is well positioned to capitalize on the data center boom and future growth in edge AI, as its architecture is more power-efficient than the competing x86 alternative used by Intel and AMD. As a result, Arm continues to earn a high valuation since it has a long runway of growth in the AI era.

According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, the stock finished the first half of the year up 31%. As you can see from the chart below, Arm started the year on a high note before crashing on tariff-driven concerns and then recovered to nearly its previous peak.

ARM data by YCharts.

Arm rides the AI wave

Arm has one of the most resilient business models in the semiconductor sector, as it earns money when it signs its licensing agreements and on royalties when the products containing its designs are sold. That creates a long-term, high-margin revenue stream and is part of the reason the stock trades at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 39 right now.

Through the first half of 2025, Arm jumped early in the year as it was named as one of the partners in the Stargate project, which plans to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure. Softbank, the Japanese investment giant that owns roughly 90% of Arm, will be one of the lead partners, which could be an advantageous position for Arm. The stock soared on the news.

In its two quarterly reports, the company showed off solid growth on both the top and bottom lines, though the stock pulled back both times.

In May, during the fiscal fourth quarter, the stock fell in part due to management’s decision not to provide full-year guidance, which was due to broader uncertainty in trade policy and the fact that its customers had also not provided guidance.

Overall revenue rose 34% to $1.24 billion, paced by strong licensing growth, and operating income was $410 million, showing its impressive margins.

Image source: Getty Images.

Can Arm keep climbing?

Arm still has a lot of growth in front of it, but given its high valuation, it may take time for the stock to move substantially higher. Still, the business is in an excellent position to capitalize on the AI boom. Investors may want to take advantage of any pullbacks in the stock over the rest of the year.

The firm is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung Group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate business in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

The tech giant said in a regulatory filing that its April-June operating profits were expected to drop to 4.6 trillion won ($3.3 billion)—down 56% from a year earlier and 31% from the previous quarter.

The figure was 23.4% lower than the average estimate, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, which cited its own financial data firm.

Sales were estimated at 74 trillion won, down 0.1% from a year earlier and 6.5% from the previous quarter.

The company did not disclose its net income or the detailed earnings of its business divisions.

In a separate release, the company explained why the results “fell short of market expectations”.

The company’s key semiconductors division “recorded a quarter-on-quarter decline in profit due to inventory value adjustments and the impact of U.S. restrictions on advanced AI chips for China”, it said.

Washington has expanded efforts to prevent Beijing getting state-of-the-art chips over concerns that they could be used to advance the country’s military systems and other tech capabilities.

The restrictions mean the company’s high-tech factories were running well below capacity.

However, Samsung projected that in the second half of the year it would trim operating losses “as utilization improves due to a gradual recovery in demand”.

Shares in Samsung were down around 0.8% in Seoul on Tuesday.

‘Weak foundry’

The sharp profit and revenue drop is attributed “primarily to the weak foundry business, while the performance of the memory business stayed relatively stable”, Tom Hsu, an analyst at TrendForce told AFP.

The outlook for the next quarter is more optimistic, with “memory chip prices and shipments to keep rising, thanks to strong demand”, especially from data centers, added Hsu, including for AI.

Performance from the company’s HBM chips—used for advanced AI computing—”likely fell short of expectations”, said Chae Min-sook, an analyst at Korea Investment and Securities.

In addition, a price drop for its NAND—used for data storage—”likely widened losses slightly”, Chae added.

“The sharp decline in the won-dollar exchange rate since June will likely weigh on both sales and operating profit (for the second quarter),” she added.

Samsung is among the smartphone makers under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened South Korea with 25% tariffs in a letter to Seoul on Monday.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that global companies—including Samsung and rival Apple—relocate production to the United States, which many experts warn is unrealistic, citing complex Asia-based supply chains.

South Korea has already been hit by levies on steel and car exports, and said Tuesday it was maintaining “close communication” with the Trump administration as it sought to head off additional measures.

Over the last two years, semiconductor powerhouse Nvidia (NVDA 1.74%) has emerged as the biggest force fueling the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. The company’s industry-leading graphics processing units (GPU) and CUDA software platform have helped Nvidia build a substantial lead over its competition in the chip market.

While Advanced Micro Devices has carved out an impressive pocket for itself in the AI data center landscape, recent reporting suggests that the company is still far behind Nvidia.

Let’s explore the dynamics behind Nvidia’s lead over AMD, and assess if the king of the chip realm just made its checkmate move against its top rival.

Nvidia continues to dominate the competition

During the early phases of the AI megatrend, Nvidia benefited from having a first-mover advantage over other semiconductor companies when it comes to GPUs specifically. While being a first mover can help companies experience outsized growth relative to the competition or form strategic partnerships with leaders in adjacent industries, there’s no guarantee that these businesses can sustain their leads.

In the case of Nvidia, however, trends suggest that company’s lead over AMD may only be getting bigger.

Beth Kindig, who serves as a technology research analyst and CEO of I/O Fund, recently shared a data point from SemiAnalysis that pointed out that Nvidia’s market share in AI accelerators increased by roughly two points during the first quarter — now hovering around 88%. By contrast, AMD’s share shrunk by about one point, now comprising roughly 4% of the market.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why these trends could spell trouble for AMD

The chart illustrates AMD’s revenue and operating income by reportable segment during the first quarter. One of the more notable takeaways is that AMD’s data center operation is its fastest-growing business, all while remaining highly profitable.

Data source: AMD investor relations.

However, a more subtle idea is that sales from the data center business shrunk by 5% quarter over quarter. To be fair, there could be a number of reasons for this.

First, the semiconductor industry is cyclical — which makes quarterly trends tougher to predict and gauge when it comes to the overall health of the business. In addition, AMD’s latest accelerator architectures are expected to ship later this year. This timeline could be playing a role in the slight deceleration of the data center business compared to the fourth quarter.

While these ideas may make some sense in theory, I find them hard to believe, given Nvidia actually gained ground in the AI accelerator market during the first quarter.

Since AI developers raced to buy Nvidia’s newest Blackwell chips, factors such as cyclicality or new competitive chipsets from AMD didn’t seem to be enough to persuade customers from waiting on AMD’s products over those of Nvidia.

In the long run, these dynamics could spell trouble for AMD. Despite the company’s ability to win impressive data center customers such as Oracle, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, AMD’s innovative efforts do not appear to be enough to outmaneuver Nvidia at this time.

Is this a checkmate move by Nvidia?

As of this writing (June 25), shares of AMD have risen by 18% so far in 2025. Per the chart, these gains are slightly ahead of Nvidia stock’s increase.

NVDA data by YCharts

I think it’s hard to justify AMD’s gains over Nvidia, given the company’s lack of market share and apparent decelerating growth (at least for now).

While I suspect AMD’s growth profile could turn around following the release of new chipsets during the second half of the year, I also think it will be challenging for the company to gain any meaningful momentum back from Nvidia — as Nvidia also has new architectures releasing later this year, too.

To me, Nvidia may have put AMD in a checkmate position for the time being. I think these figures reported could imply that Nvidia will remain the leader in AI data center chips and could be on its way to a new, prolonged, and sustained wave of growth.

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