Lam Research Slides 8% Premarket as In-Line Guidance Reignites AI Spending Fears
LRCX sits 77% above its 52-week low of $135.5.
Summary
Lam Research beat on earnings for the September quarter but guided the current quarter only in line with expectations, and that was enough to knock the stock down near 8% in premarket trading Thursday. The reaction follows Wednesday's report of record September-quarter revenue of $8.22 billion, up 22% sequentially, with 40.0% GAAP operating margin — a strong print that nonetheless failed to clear the bar on forward spending. The selling is not company-specific: the iShares Semiconductor ETF was set to drop almost 4% after a 2.1% gain Wednesday, with Intel down more than 5%, Applied Materials down 5%, AMD down 4.5% and Nvidia down 2.4% premarket. The message from the tape is that investors are treating any in-line AI capex outlook as a warning rather than a neutral, and Lam sits at the front of that supply chain.
At the time of this announcement, LRCX was trading at $240.10 on NASDAQ in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $326.4B. The 52-week trading range was $135.50 to $438.50. This news item was assessed with negative market sentiment and an importance score of 7 out of 10. Source: Dow Jones Newswires.