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• AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC Wednesday that demand for the company's chips is “on fire” and that she sees this as an "inflection year" for the company as it rolls out its next-generation products.
• Shares of AMD slumped Wednesday despite results that topped Wall Street's estimates.

Investors dropped shares of Advanced Micro Devices after its latest earnings. Its CEO says they should be excited about what's ahead this year.

Shares of AMD (AMD), regarded by some as a top alternative to AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA), plunged over 17% Wednesday, leaving them in the red year-to-date despite quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street estimates. Analysts said lofty expectations, along with concerns that a surprise boost from China sales may have helped smooth over softer growth elsewhere, and uncertainty about the competitiveness of its next generation of products, weighed on sentiment. 

Lisa Su, however, is upbeat.

AMD, long seen as a second fiddle to chip industry leader Nvidia, could face a big test this year with its latest AI products set to launch in the second half.

She told CNBC in a televised interview Wednesday that demand for its chips is “on fire” with the results showing “strength across the entire business.” The CEO also said she sees 2026 as a “big inflection year” for the company, as it prepares to roll out its next generation of AI chips in the second half. 

Revenue from AMD's MI450, designed to compete with Nvidia’s Rubin chips, is expected to start contributing to AMD’s revenue in the third quarter, Su told investors during a conference call Tuesday, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

Su, who told CNBC that AI is “accelerating at a pace I would not have imagined,” projected that AMD's data center segment—responsible for the bulk of its revenue—could rise more than 60% annually over the next three to five years as the industry grows.

AMD's shares finished the day around $200 apiece, dropping further below Wall Street's consensus price target, near $276, after Wednesday's drop. Tech shares took a hit Wednesday; read Investopedia's full coverage of today's trading here.

• Corporate giants such as Amazon, UPS and Dow have made major layoff announcements in recent weeks.
• Researchers examining labor market data have so far found AI's impact on jobs to be limited.
• Some analysts say companies may be "AI-washing" layoffs—blaming AI to distract from deeper problems.

The labor market limped into 2026, and big layoff announcements in recent weeks have added fresh anxiety to the fragile jobs picture.

Amazon.com (AMZN) said it plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate roles, while United Parcel Service (UPS) announced 30,000 new job cuts, following an even larger reduction last year. Chemical manufacturing company Dow (DOW) slashed 4,500 jobs, or roughly 12% of its workforce, while Home Depot (HD) and Nike (NKE) each cut hundreds more.

For many workers, the fear isn’t just about layoffs—it’s about why they’re happening. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 71% of Americans worry artificial intelligence could permanently replace their job.

With AI frequently cited in corporate earnings calls and layoff announcements, it’s easy to connect the dots. But when economists and labor researchers dig into the data, a more complicated—and far less AI-driven picture—emerges.

AI has often grabbed the headlines, but federal workforce cuts, economic conditions, and company closings drove the vast majority of last year's 1.2 million layoffs. Researchers say some companies may be "AI-washing"—using automation as cover for deeper problems. The real story is a labor market that added just 12,000 jobs a month in the back half of 2025—compared with 186,000 per month the year before—and looks weak in early 2026.

Workers are echoing what they're hearing from the top. Prominent CEOs, from Salesforce's Marc Benioff to Ford's Jim Farley to Anthropic's Dario Amodei, have said that AI is coming for their jobs.

A string of major reports has only sparked wider worries. A November Stanford study using ADP payroll data found that early-career workers in AI-exposed occupations had a 16% employment decline after ChatGPT's release. The World Economic Forum reported last year that 41% of employers planned to shrink their workforce where AI can automate tasks. The International Monetary Fund estimated last month that 60% of jobs in advanced economies are "exposed" to AI. Workers who haven't adapted well to the technology have seen their employment drop by 3.6%.

Despite all that, when researchers look for AI's fingerprints in the employment data, they're not finding much.

The Yale Budget Lab analyzed U.S. labor market data from ChatGPT's November 2022 release through late 2025 and didn't find any major shifts yet in the labor market. The share of workers in jobs with high, medium, and low AI exposure has remained "remarkably steady," the researchers concluded. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economists argued much the same in a report out last month, saying the overall impact from AI has been "small and subtle."

Challenger, Gray & Christmas's report on 2025 job losses gives us a broader picture. Of the 1.2 million job cuts announced in 2025, AI was blamed for fewer than 55,000, about 4.5%. Federal workforce cuts by DOGE alone drove six times that number. Economic conditions were behind another 253,000. Company closings eliminated 191,000 more. AI didn't crack the top five.

Researchers have found that when AI is deployed at a job, it's far more often been as a tool, not a replacement. Anthropic's Economic Index for January, which analyzed millions of real conversations with its Claude chatbot, shows that most work-related AI use involves humans using AI for specific tasks, not automation. In addition, the index shows that the success rate for AI-assisted tasks drops sharply on complex work, suggesting the technology still needs human oversight for the work that matters most.

So why are there so many mentions of AI around recent job losses? One answer may be what some analysts have been calling "AI-washing." Firms may now be looking to distract from strategic missteps by rebranding layoffs as an AI pivot.

"We suspect some firms are trying to dress up layoffs as a good news story rather than bad news," an Oxford Economics report argued last month.

AI could still be reshaping the job market. The question is the timeline. The Yale Budget Lab argues that technologies like computers and the internet took decades, not months, to fully change labor markets. So far, artificial intelligence is fitting much the same pattern—no matter how often AI shows up in the layoff announcements.

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended President Donald Trump's tariff policies in a congressional hearing Wednesday.
  
• Bessent said Trump's tariffs will take time to have their intended effect of revitalizing U.S. manufacturing and restoring factory jobs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent came to Congress Wednesday with a message to critics who say his administration's tariffs are not delivering on promises to re-industrialize the country: give it some time.

Bessent answered questions from the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing Wednesday, addressing tariffs, the president's attacks on the Federal Reserve, and other economic matters.

Bessent faced a mixture of supportive and critical questions from lawmakers during his testimony.

The near-term trajectory of the economy hinges on whether tariffs have a negligible effect on inflation and if they will succeed in encouraging manufacturing in the U.S.

Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, pointed out that the economy has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs every month since Trump imposed sweeping import taxes on most U.S. trading partners last year.

Bessent said a slew of factories have broken ground in response to the tariffs, which are intended to tip the scales in favor of domestic manufacturing over imports. Those factories will take some time to get up and running, he said.

So far, tariffs have not yet created the goal of a golden age of manufacturing that Trump is looking for. The U.S. economy has lost 72,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement in April.

Some business leaders have put hiring and expansion plans on hold because of the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs, according to surveys. For example, the Institute for Supply Management's January poll of manufacturers was filled with complaints about import taxes, including from one manager who said they made long-term planning "pointless."

However, by many measures, the economy has held up despite predictions from experts at the outset of the tariff campaign that they would stoke high inflation and possibly cause a recession. Many economists nixed their recession calls after Trump scaled back the import taxes from his initial proposals. Inflation has stayed stubbornly above 2% but not surged, while the economy has continued to grow at a healthy clip despite a job slowdown.

"The are numerous goals, but it is to make the U.S. economy more resilient," Bessent said of the tariffs. "Tariff inflation was the dog that didn't bark."

• Eli Lilly's stock surged Wednesday while shares of weight-loss rival Novo Nordisk slumped, widening the gap between the drugmakers.
• The stocks of the companies behind popular weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Ozempic have pulled apart since late last year.

There's a growing divergence between the shares of rival weight-loss drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.

Eli Lilly's (LLY) stock jumped over 10% Wednesday on the company's stronger-than-expected earnings and rosy outlook. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk (NVO) saw its U.S.-listed shares sink 6%, a day after the Danish drugmaker warned its sales could take a hit this year.

The moves have widened the gap between the shares, which started to pull apart last fall after a series of promising trials and boom in sales of Mounjaro and Zepbound for Eli Lilly, while Ozempic and Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk's growth slowed.

Novo Nordisk's stock rallied late last year after it was the first to win approval for a pill version of its weight-loss drugs, but today's move reversed those gains.

Eli Lilly said Wednesday that its revenue surged 45% last year to $65.18 billion, while Novo Nordisk reported Tuesday that its sales grew just 6% in 2025 to 309.06 billion Danish kroner ($48.84 billion).

Novo Nordisk also warned its sales could decline this year, while Eli Lilly forecasted growth. Novo Nordisk pointed to lower prices in the U.S. as part of an agreement with the Trump administration, less Medicaid coverage for its weight-loss drugs, and increased competition for the gloomier outlook.

With Wednesday's gains, Eli Lilly shares have added about a third of their value in the last 12 months, while Novo Nordisk shares have lost over 40%.

The Tech-Heavy Nasdaq Has Fallen Sharply the Last Two Sessions

• The sector rotation from tech leadership to defensive sector leadership has picked up steam in recent days amid a sell-off in software stocks, a development some experts were calling "healthy" on Wednesday.
• Accelerating earnings growth outside of the Magnificent Seven has taken some of the sheen off Big Tech stocks, pressuring the market's largest stocks but buoying long-neglected corners of the market.

It might be hard for investors to feel upbeat while the major indexes are being hammered by tumbling tech stocks. But that's exactly how some experts are reacting to the rout.

“I actually think what we’re seeing in markets so far this year is very healthy,” said Stephen Parker, co-head of global investment strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank, in an appearance on CNBC Wednesday.

At the index level, the year so far is looking like a wash. The S&P 500 is up less than 1% since the start of the year after a volatile January. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down 1.5% in 2026 after two straight days of big declines.

Tech stocks have been the driving force behind stock market gains for most of the bull market that began in late 2022. But unease over artificial intelligence (AI)'s potential to disrupt certain tech industries, as well as lingering concerns about richly valued tech stocks, has flipped the script this year, buoying value stocks and defensive sectors.

But movements under the surface tell a clearer story of market winners and losers. Tech is the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500 so far this year, down about 5%. There, concerns that AI will disrupt the software industry have offset big stock gains for the makers of memory chips and data storage devices. 

Meanwhile, the energy and consumer staples sectors are up double digits since the start of 2026, suggesting that the shift in market leadership that analysts have been eyeing for more than a year is finally underway. 

“People have been worried about concentration risk,” said Parker, referring to persistent concerns in recent years that the tech sector had too much weight in major indexes. “Now we’re seeing a rotation. It’s about a broadening of the recovery story,” he added. 

In the past month, Bank of America clients have funneled more money into consumer staples stocks—both in absolute dollar terms and as a percent of the sector’s market capitalization—than during any other four-week stretch since 2008, when the bank began tracking flows. On the flip side, clients have been net sellers of the tech sector in four of the past five weeks.

Market watchers have been expecting the chasm between the growth of the Magnificent Seven and the rest of the economy to narrow for well over a year. But Big Tech’s growth has remained exceptional. The Mag 7 currently accounts for a record 27.8% of the S&P 500’s earnings, according to a recent Ned Davis Research report. 

But there are signs the tides could finally be turning. As of Monday, a record 90% of large-cap value companies tracked by Ned Davis had beat fourth-quarter earnings estimates. 

With growth accelerating outside of the tech sector, tech stocks have lost some of their luster. The difference between the Mag 7’s weight in the S&P 500 and its share of the index’s earnings—a shorthand for the premium investors are willing to pay for Big Tech stocks—narrowed from about 8% late last year to 6.3% today. That’s still well above the long-term average, meaning there’s room for Big Tech’s stock multiples to compress. 

The Mag 7’s earnings power and Wall Street’s taste for tech will be put to the test when Alphabet (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) report quarterly results on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, respectively. Last week’s reports from Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) revealed investors are setting a high bar for Big Tech.

Experts say the set-up is favorable for defensive sectors like consumer staples and industrials. “We see more room to run for Staples, which is still very underweight by active funds,” wrote BofA analysts on Wednesday. The sector could also benefit from policies coming out of Washington, D.C., meant to address voters' affordability concerns ahead of November's midterm elections.

But some warn not to write off growth stocks yet. Investors may return to paying a substantial premium for fast-growing tech companies if economic growth moderates later this year, said Ned Davis analysts. 

UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect Wednesday's closing stock market prices.

• Beaten-down shares—like the software and related stocks lately trading around fresh 52-week lows—aren't as desirable as they may seem, some market experts say.
• Losers tend to keep losing, academic literature show.

The classic refrain of "buy the dip" may sound like a siren song.

The recent selloff in well-regarded software stocks may lead some investors to think it's time to snap up seeming bargains. (Think companies like Adobe (ADBE), Salesforce (CRM), Intuit (INTU), and Workday (WDAY), all of which are trading around 52-week lows.) But should you leave them alone for now? Some Wall Street experts have recently warned "don't buy new lows," citing academic studies that show that momentum can be a dangerous force to be reckoned with.

The list of stocks making new lows may include software stocks with good reputations, DataTrek's Nicholas Colas and Jessica Rabe wrote in a note Tuesday evening. But "our advice is to be very careful if you want to bottom feed on any of them."

With broad market indexes sitting near record highs, investors may be inspired to bargain hunt. But some bargains are discounted for a reason, according to analysts who say pullbacks from new highs make better bets than drops to new lows.

"We have seen more Wall Street careers end prematurely by breaking the “never buy a new low” rule than any other investment/trading mistake," they said.

The co-authors cited a study from Erasmus University researchers and Northern Trust, which analyzed the returns for long-short stock portfolios of U.S. and international stocks—essentially, those that both buy stocks with the intention of watching them rise and sell short others they expect to fall—with the best and worst price momentums from 1990 to 2024. (Momentum is a measure of the rate of change in the price of an asset.)

The data, according to Colas and Rabe, show that "being long names with positive price momentum and short those with weak momentum yielded positive average annual returns in the U.S. and 30 other countries."

In other words, winners tend to keep winning and losers keep losing. Colas and Rabe suggest waiting for price stability before picking through the wreckage. (They didn't mention it in their note, but beta is one traditional measure of a stock's volatility.)

The story might be different for stocks recently backing off 52-week highs. Deutsche Bank macro strategist Henry Allen in a Wednesday note observed that the year has been marked by a pattern of "sharp sell-offs that quickly recover, sometimes within hours."

The reasons for those sell-offs vary, with geopolitical risk causing the mid-January swoon and Greenland-related tariffs hitting stocks shortly after that. Capital expenditure concerns upset the S&P 500 in late January, and a plunge in gold and silver bled into the broader market earlier this week. What's meaningful about those declines, Allen wrote, is that "they fail to inflict lasting damage."

"When we've historically seen more durable market downturns, it's consistently coincided with a fundamentally negative reassessment in the macro outlook, which we haven't yet seen today in any meaningful sense," he said.

• Montana and North Dakota have lowered property taxes in their states, which have been rising along with soaring home values.
• Several other states, including Florida, Ohio and Kansas, are also looking at ways to reduce or eliminate the taxes charged based on home values.
• Some states are also trying to replace the funding lost from property tax collection, which is often used to pay for schools and other essential services.

Homeowners in Montana and North Dakota are set to see a drop in their property taxes. And they may not be alone as the political movement to lower—or eliminate—state property taxes on primary residences gains steam.  

Property taxes have increased by 30% nationally since 2019, as home prices have skyrocketed since the pandemic, making it harder for some homeowners to afford where they live. To counter this trend, at least seven states have legislators or taxpayer groups pushing proposals to reduce property taxes for permanent residents.

Rising property taxes hurt household budgets and housing affordability, especially when home values climb faster than incomes, forcing some owners to pay more each year simply to stay in their homes. Changes to property tax policy can shift home prices, rental demand, and local government finances, influencing everything from real estate returns to school funding and municipal bond stability.

Last year, Montana enacted legislation that would significantly lower taxes on homeowners’ primary residence for the 2025 tax year, while North Dakota also approved reforms to cut property taxes for 2025.

Now, voters in Florida could soon have the chance to reform property taxes after a proposal in the state’s legislature moved forward earlier this year. Similar plans are in the works in several other states.

Home prices have increased 55% nationwide since the pandemic. And since property taxes are determined by a home’s value, many American homeowners have seen a dramatic jump in their tax bills.

Reducing property taxes would make owning a home cheaper in those states, but the proposals are also stirring debate over whether local governments that rely on the revenue could be shortchanged in their budget process. Lower property taxes could also drive home values higher, which would be good for owners, but could make it even harder for first-time homebuyers to enter the market.

Here are the states where proposals to lower property taxes have been successful or are gaining momentum:

New property tax laws here will deliver a tax cut to 80% of residential property owners in the 2025 tax year—the average being $500—while another 10% of homeowners won’t see any tax increases, Gov. Greg Gianforte said.

Not only does the plan deliver a tax break for homestead properties, which are defined as an owner’s primary residence, it will also deliver a tax break for long-term renters in homestead properties. However, owners of vacation homes and other non-homestead properties will face a tax increase of 68% from 2024 to 2026, the state’s Department of Revenue estimated.

After Gov. Kelly Armstrong called for property tax relief in his 2025 State of the State address, the legislature followed through to expand the homestead property tax credit to $1,600 from $500. The revenue will be made up by the state’s Legacy Fund, which is capitalized through taxes on the state’s sizable oil production revenues.

“Homeowners will see a significant, immediate impact,” Armstrong said. “And it will put the bulk of primary residences on a path to zero [property taxes] within the next decade.”

Late last year, Ohio passed legislation that would cap property tax increases at the rate of inflation. Still, some Ohio residents want further reductions, and a citizens’ movement to repeal property taxes is working to collect the 400,000 signatures needed by July to put it on the 2026 ballot.

Gov. Ron DeSantis threw his support behind eliminating the homestead property tax in the Sunshine State late last year.

Now, the legislature is debating a proposed ballot item that would increase the exemption for homestead properties by $100,000 a year over the course of the next 10 years, eventually eliminating homestead property taxes altogether. Property taxes that are used to pay for schools would remain in effect, however. The proposal will need the approval of 60% of voters. 

The initiative could pose a problem for Florida homebuyers, however—a Realtor.com study showed that eliminating the property tax there could drive home prices higher by up to 9%.

Since property taxes are often used to fund schools and other basic local services, some argue that property tax cuts should be accompanied by measures to replace the revenue.

But Pennsylvania Rep. Russ Diamond took a different approach in support of his legislation that would put the elimination of property taxes on that state’s ballots. Diamond argued that property taxes were a violation of personal liberty that should be repealed and his proposal would give the state legislature five years to figure out how to replace the funding. 

“That question is entirely secondary to the objective of securing our right to true liberty by eliminating real property taxes,” Diamond wrote in a blog post. “The rest is merely a math problem, which you can assign to your servants—the Pennsylvania General Assembly—to figure out.”

A proposal in the Sunflower State would create a new fund designed to help pave the way for reductions in property taxes. The bill would repeal some state sales tax exemptions to create a source of revenue for the fund, which would then be used to lower or repeal property taxes once the fund becomes large enough. So far, the measure hasn’t moved forward in the Kansas legislature.

Lawmakers in this state have introduced legislation that would exempt homeowners from property tax if they’ve lived in their house for 30 years or longer.

Other states have also considered eliminating property taxes. The Missouri legislation didn’t advance a 2025 bill that would have put a plan to replace property taxes with sales taxes on the ballot. The Indiana and Oklahoma legislatures have also so far failed to move forward with property tax bills.

• President Donald Trump hiked tariffs after taking office last year, but the economic damage some thought would result hasn’t yet emerged.
• Economists said AI and government spending have helped support the economy, while importers and exporters have buffered the impact on consumers.

Some economists forecast that tariffs would lead to ruin for the U.S. economy. Instead, the economy is growing faster than it has in years, surprising them. So what happened?

“If you walked 100 economists in a room one year ago and informed them of these developments today, I suspect virtually all would project the U.S. economy would be stagnant at best and cratering at worst,” said Ben Harris, director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, during a recent panel discussion on tariffs and other economic policies from President Donald Trump.

After taking office early last year, Trump enacted a series of import taxes that fundamentally changed how the U.S. trades with other countries. Harris noted the average tariff rate jumped to 28% in April, up from 2.4% on election day. The Tax Policy Center estimated that, after negotiations, the current average tariff rate is now 17%.

The U.S. economy may be more resilient to trade shocks than standard models assume, which could influence how policymakers and markets assess the risks of future trade restrictions.

But the impact from tariffs, so far, has been muted. Inflation has remained above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2% for nearly four years, but is still well below the highs notched in 2022. Gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter expanded at its fastest pace since 2023, and other economic measurements have also shown solid growth.

There are several reasons tariffs haven’t created the economic drag initially expected, experts said at the roundtable. 

• Initial tariff levels were negotiated down: Some of the tariff negotiations have included exemptions and commitments to purchase from U.S. companies. This has resulted in a smaller impact than economists expected when tariffs were announced in April.
• Companies and households are still spending: Robust spending on artificial intelligence has helped lift the economy. Government deficit spending and tax cuts are also likely to have some impact. Meanwhile, consumers keep spending, despite having a very low opinion of the economy.
• Overseas sellers may have lowered prices to keep orders flowing: “That was Trump's argument all along, that U.S. importers were never going to pay these tariffs, that consumers were never going to see higher prices, because the exporters were going to have to lower their prices to maintain market share,” said Wendy Edelberg, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
• Corporations tried to avoid passing along costs to consumers: “We saw corporations choose not to pass along tariffs to consumers, choose to stockpile goods in advance of the tariffs going into effect, choose to shift production so that they could avoid tariffs,” said Nora Todd, a former trade adviser in then-President Joe Biden's administration.
• Economists may have overestimated the role of foreign trade in the U.S. economy: Harris, the director at Brookings, noted that Trump’s tariff collections have grown by less than $200 billion, which may be painful for consumers, but isn't enough to disrupt a $30 trillion economy.

Some of the factors that have held back the full impact of tariffs on the economy may be waning, the experts said.

Importers and exporters may have eaten some of the costs of tariffs, Edelberg said, but they are unlikely to keep doing so. 

“It is clear that imported goods that are subject to these tariffs are indeed showing higher prices for consumers, and in fact, that domestically manufactured goods that compete with those imported goods are also showing higher prices,” Edelberg said.

Edelberg predicted inflation will remain persistent throughout 2026 and into 2027. 

Ultimately, the fact that the tariff increases didn’t have the impact that some had forecast could help economists better understand how government policies affect the overall economy. 

“If nothing else, this year has tested the limits of our understanding of the potential impacts of policy making on the economy,” Harris said. “I suspect one enduring lesson learned, both over the course of 2025 as well as during the pandemic, is that the size and diversity of the U.S. economy usually protects it from sharp downturns.”

• Chipotle told investors to expect flat same-store sales in 2026. That's not what they'd likely prefer, but it's better than the retreat the company managed last year.
• Some analysts say the company, which has seen its shares fall over the past 12 months, is setting itself up to exceed expectations in 2026.

Chipotle's burrito is undoubtedly bruised.

Sales at the chain rose last year, but most of that came from new store openings. Transactions fell, offsetting a higher average check; all told, same-store sales finished 2025 in the red. This has been bad news for the onetime highflying stock, which has lost about a third of its value over the past 12 months.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) shares aren't getting hit too hard today, the first session after it released its latest quarterly results. The stock was recently down a bit less than 1% as broader markets were mixed. (Read Investopedia's full coverage of today's trading here.)

Some Chipotle watchers are applauding what they see as appropriate conservatism in management's outlook for 2026. That, they suggest, could mean the company is essentially underpromising so it can overdeliver, offering investors a pleasant surprise if they come along for the ride.

Is that a mark of confidence, or concern? It's hard to say. The company said it expects 2026 same-store sales to come in flat. It also said it's sticking with previously announced plans to open as many as 370 new restaurants, most of them in the U.S.

"It's still very early in the year, and consumer trends have been really tough to predict," CFO Adam Rymer said on a conference call late Tuesday, a transcript of which was provided by AlphaSense. "We wanted to be conservative in our full-year guide to account for this."

The mood of Wall Street analysts might be described as cautiously optimistic. Their roughly $47 mean price target, as tracked by Visible Alpha, points to roughly 20% upside from Monday's close—a substantial climb, though the stock was there as recently as July.

Chipotle "offers a favorable setup and catalyst path in 2026," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote after the results, saying the company "took an appropriately conservative approach to its guide." That, they say, could build credibility for the management team with investors.

Bank of America, which is more bullish than the Street at large, thinks factors including higher in-store efficiency, marketing campaigns and successful limited-time offers can drive the stock upward. "We are optimistic Chipotle has set a beatable bar," they wrote.

• AMD shares sank sharply Wednesday, despite fourth-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street's estimates.
• Analysts said a surprise sales boost from China that may have smoothed over softer growth in other areas and high investor expectations heading into the report likely weighed on the stock.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) investors are becoming harder to impress.

Shares of the chipmaker sank over 13% in early trading Wednesday, despite fourth-quarter results that topped Wall Street's estimates. Record revenue of $10.27 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $1.53 each came in better than expected.

However, a surprise boost from sales of AMD's MI308 chip to customers in China may have raised concerns about "more muted growth" across the rest of the company's AI sales, Wedbush analysts said following the results. The analysts also warned AMD could still face a number of challenges to securing more sales in China amid shifting export restrictions of advanced chips.

Results from AI-related companies have been under the microscope this earnings season amid concerns about spending in the sector, and fears that the rally of the last few years has left some in the AI trade overvalued, even as demand looks strong for chipmakers such as AMD and analysts remain bullish.

Morgan Stanley analysts said they were surprised by the market's reaction, expecting the quarter's results would have been solid enough to drive the stock higher. Some investors may also be waiting to see more signs of success from AMD's latest products, which could remain "something of a show-me story," they said.

With Wednesday's drop, AMD shares have given up their gains for the year, but are still up about 90% in the last 12 months, thanks to gains driven by strong sales and new partnerships.