The share prices of the two big graphics rivals - NVIDIA and AMD - experienced contrasting fortunes in what was otherwise a relatively uneventful week for tech stocks.
NVIDIA was its shares fall by over seven percent in a week in which the main US indices flat-lined. The reasons were probably the settlement of a couple of legal matters at considerable expense to the graphics giant.
First NVIDIA settled with patent-holder OPTi to the tune of $2 million in order to renew its licence for something called ‘pre-snoop technology'. Then NVIDIA announced the settlement of its long-running ‘weak die/packaging material' problems. Not only has it put aside $2 million to pay for affected PCs to be repaired, but also agreed to pay claimants legal fees of around $13 million.
There were no such obvious reasons for AMD doing so much better last week, so maybe it experienced an uplift on the back of NVIDIA's misfortunes.
Also of note last week was a rare fall in the share prices of investor darlings Apple and ARM.
| Company | Listing | Share price 13/9/10 | Share price 20/9/10 | Share price 27/9/10 | Share price 4/10/10 | 7-day change | Market cap (bn) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD | AMD | 5.81 | 6.12 | 6.84 | 7.05 | 3.1% | 4.76 |
| Apple | AAPL | 263.41 | 275.37 | 292.32 | 282.52 | -3.4% | 258.10 |
| ARM | ARMH | 18.66 | 18.34 | 19.79 | 19.25 | -2.7% | 8.48 |
| Avnet | AVT | 24.91 | 25.83 | 26.84 | 26.84 | 0.0% | 4.08 |
| Cisco | CSCO | 20.62 | 21.86 | 22.09 | 21.91 | -0.8% | 122.37 |
| Dell | DELL | 12.06 | 12.45 | 12.65 | 13.04 | 3.1% | 25.35 |
| GOOG | 476.14 | 490.15 | 527.29 | 525.62 | -0.3% | 167.52 | |
| HP | HPQ | 38.28 | 39.14 | 40.98 | 40.77 | -0.5% | 92.46 |
| IBM | IBM | 127.99 | 130.19 | 134.11 | 135.64 | 1.1% | 171.08 |
| Ingram Micro | IM | 15.83 | 16.08 | 16.40 | 17.08 | 4.1% | 2.68 |
| Intel | INTC | 17.97 | 18.81 | 19.42 | 19.32 | -0.5% | 107.57 |
| Microsoft | MSFT | 23.85 | 25.22 | 24.77 | 24.38 | -1.6% | 210.97 |
| Nokia | NOK | 9.94 | 9.96 | 10.06 | 10.31 | 2.5% | 38.61 |
| Nvidia | NVDA | 10.07 | 10.55 | 12.26 | 11.35 | -7.4% | 6.51 |
| Oracle | ORCL | 25.05 | 27.48 | 26.96 | 27.24 | 1.0% | 136.91 |
| Qualcomm | QCOM | 40.42 | 42.53 | 44.55 | 44.26 | -0.7% | 71.05 |
| Tech Data | TECD | 38.21 | 38.84 | 39.45 | 40.19 | 1.9% | 1.87 |
| Dow | .DJI | 10462.77 | 10607.85 | 10860.26 | 10829.68 | -0.3% | N/A |
| FTSE 100 | .FTSE | 5501.64 | 5508.45 | 5598.48 | 5592.90 | -0.1% | N/A |
| NASDAQ | .IXIC | 2242.48 | 2315.61 | 2381.22 | 2370.75 | -0.4% | N/A |
