Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis upgraded AMD (AMD) to Equal Weight from Underweight with an unchanged price target of $25. The chipmaker closed yesterday up 6%, or $1.37, to $25.03. The analyst is using the recent pullback in AMD shares to upgrade the stock while he reiterates an Underweight rating on Intel (INTC). Curtis, who admits to being surprised by how much credit AMD got this year, says the company is "ready to put pressure on Intel." Heading into 2019, the "competitive pressure should get very real," Curtis tells investors in a research note. The analyst is "surprised by the notion that Intel delivering 10nm client products in 2019 on schedule is now a positive and would highlight that it still does nothing to help Intel navigate a 12-18 month gap in servers."

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The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded Intel Foundry Phase Three of its Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes - Commercial, or RAMP-C, program, the company announced. "The award was announced through the National Security Technology Accelerator's consortium-based Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems Other Transaction Authority program. The third phase of RAMP-C advances the tape-out and testing of early defense industrial base product prototypes, signifying a critical milestone for the program that highlights the readiness of Intel 18A process technology, intellectual property and ecosystem solutions for high-volume manufacturing. As part of the announcement, RAMP-C customers can begin manufacturing commercial and DIB product prototypes on Intel 18A process technology," Intel stated. Reference Link

Friday's total option volume of 56.7 million contracts resulted in net open interest growth of 6.01 million calls and 5.28 million puts. NVIDIA (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), Apple (AAPL) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) saw the greatest growth. Top five new positions opened include 50k Lyft (LYFT) May-24 20 calls, 44k Energy Transfer (ET) 4/26 weekly 16.5 calls, 43k Las Vegas Sands (LVS) Sep-24 41 calls, 23k Tesla (TSLA) 4/26 weekly 162.5 calls and 21k Papa John's (PZZA) Jun-24 57.5 puts.