Highly-flying AMD will not be able to compete with its main competitor's latest chips, according to one Wall Street firm.
Citi Research reiterated its sell rating for AMD shares, predicting the chipmaker will lose sales to Intel's new "Coffee Lake" line of processors.
"This month, Intel released its latest CPUs, which appear to have extended its performance lead … We see the competitive environment for AMD CPUs getting more difficult over time as the competition continues to introduce new processors," analyst Christopher Danely wrote in a note to clients Monday. "Despite new products, AMD is still losing money we see no change in sight as it falls further behind the competition."
Intel released its eighth-generation processor line on Oct. 5.
AMD's stock is up 112 percent in the past 12 months through Friday compared with the S&P 500's 20 percent gain. That performance ranks No. 5 in the entire S&P 500, according to FactSet. Danely is clearly not a believer in one of the hottest stocks because he's had a sell rating on it since December 2014.
The analyst reaffirmed his $5 price target for AMD shares, representing 64 percent downside from Friday's close.
The analyst said benchmark reports showed AMD Ryzen processors underperformed Intel's new chips by around 20 percent. He estimates AMD's market share will slightly increase to 7.2 percent in the third-quarter.
"We do not expect share gains to be sustainable," he wrote. "We believe AMD's next process should not be sufficient to close the current performance gap and Intel's next process should increase the performance gap."
AMD didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday, according to its website.