US Stock Market Weekly Earnings Preview: AI Chip Sector Set for Three Key Battles

BlockBeats News, August 4th. This week, US chip stocks will face a series of key financial reports. AMD will release its second-quarter earnings after the US market closes on Tuesday, August 4th, SanDisk and Western Digital will announce their fourth-quarter and full-year financial performance after the US market closes on Wednesday, August 5th.

The significance of these three financial reports lies not only in the performance of individual companies. After a sharp decline in July, AI hardware stocks, the market is looking for evidence of whether the "chip stocks have recovered." Last week, cloud companies such as Microsoft and Amazon alleviated concerns about AI capital expenditure returns, and the performance of storage chain companies like Samsung and Micron rekindled sector sentiment. In last Thursday's recovery market, Micron soared 18%, SanDisk rose 26%, Lam Research rose 18%, and chip stocks once led the market rebound.

AMD faces the first tough battle. The market is currently most concerned about AMD's two growth drivers: EPYC server CPUs and AI accelerators. Analysts estimate that AMD's revenue in the second quarter is about $11.3 billion, with data center revenue of about $6.5 billion, including approximately $4 billion in server chip revenue and $2.5 billion in AI-related revenue; adjusted EPS is estimated to be about $1.62. Citing Visible Alpha data, Investopedia stated that the market expects AMD's second-quarter revenue to be around $11.34 billion, a 48% year-over-year growth, with an adjusted EPS of $1.61, triple the same period last year.

The real highlight of AMD's financial report lies in guidance. Jeffrey analyst Blayne Curtis is optimistic about AMD's next-generation Venice server CPU and Helios rack-level AI system based on the MI450 GPU. Customers such as OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, Anthropic, etc., are considered potential sources of demand for Helios, with initial shipments possibly starting in the third quarter, but significant revenue contributions are expected to come after the fourth quarter.

The options market is also pricing in significant volatility: Investopedia stated that traders are betting that AMD's stock price may fluctuate by about 10% after the earnings report. This means that merely meeting expectations may not be enough; the market needs to see AI GPU orders, customer adoption progress, and continued upward guidance for the third quarter.

SanDisk, on the other hand, is the high-beta target of the storage chain sentiment. The company will release its fourth-quarter financial performance after the market closes on August 5th and will hold an Investor Day on August 13th. Benzinga data shows that Wall Street expects SanDisk's fourth-quarter EPS to be $33.38, with revenue of $8.24 billion; the company's previous revenue guidance range was $7.75 billion to $8.25 billion, with an EPS guidance of $30 to $33. In other words, market expectations are already close to or slightly higher than the upper end of the company's guidance.

This sets a high bar for SanDisk. Zacks noted that SanDisk has exceeded earnings expectations by an average of 68.29% in the past two quarters, with the current Earnings ESP at +4.13%. Zacks ranks it as a #1 Strong Buy, implying that analysts are still betting on the company to continue outperforming expectations. However, high expectations also mean greater volatility. While SanDisk is still in a long-term uptrend, it has recently pulled back from its highs, showing weakening technical momentum. The market will closely watch NAND prices, enterprise SSD demand, gross margin, and whether the Investor Day on August 13 will provide a stronger long-term growth framework.

Western Digital's logic is slightly different; it appears more like a solid validation of AI data center storage demand. Benzinga data shows that Western Digital's Q4 consensus expectations are an EPS of $3.27 and revenue of $36.9 billion. Previously, Zacks had provided EPS expectations of $3.34 and revenue of $37 billion, representing year-over-year growth of about **101%** and 42%, respectively. The company's Q3 report released in April indicated that Q4 revenue guidance is around $36.5 billion, with a variance of $1 billion, non-GAAP gross margin forecasted at 51%-52%, and EPS of $3.25 with a variance of $0.15.

Western Digital's focus is on high-capacity HDDs and cloud data center demand. The company's management emphasized in the Q3 earnings call that AI training, inference, Agentic AI, and Physical AI will all generate data that needs to be stored long-term, forming the basis of HDD demand. If Western Digital continues to demonstrate revenue growth, margin expansion, and strong free cash flow in Q4, the market will see it as evidence that AI storage demand is still expanding.

Overall, AMD's earnings will address the question of "Can AI computing power orders still be revised up?", SanDisk will address "Can the price increase of NAND/Flash and the prosperity of enterprise SSDs support the high valuation?", and Western Digital will address "Can AI data center storage demand stabilize and translate into profit margins?". If all three earnings reports remain stable, this round of chip stock rebound will look more like a fundamental recovery. However, if any of these companies provide conservative guidance, the shadow left by the valuation sell-off in July may quickly return.