This Week in Tech: Apple, Amazon, AMD, Intel, and Twitter

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) shares retreated by around 20% this week due to a big equity and convertible note offering. According to the offering terms announced on Friday, AMD will sell $600 million worth of common stock for $6 per share, and will grant underwriters an expiring option to buy an additional 15 million shares at the same price. AMD has also increased its convertible note offering to $700 million from the original $450 million. AMD intends to use the net proceeds to repay debt. Traders sold shares off this week because the offering size is considerable in relation to AMD’s current market cap. The number of funds that we track with holdings in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) rose by 12 quarter-over-quarter to 25 at the end of June.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) ended an excursion outside of its core competency this week by agreeing to spin-off its security business. Intel bought McAfee for $7.68 billion several years ago in an attempt to gain more mobile market share, hoping that McAfee’s security adeptness would help Intel sell more mobile chips (where security concerns are important). A few years later, Intel’s mobile market share hasn’t changed that much, and the company agreed to spin-off the division into a new company also called McAfee, to the private equity firm TPG. Under the terms, Intel will retain a 49% stake in the new company and will receive $3.1 billion in cash. The spin-out values McAfee at around $4.2 billion. 57 funds in our database had a bullish position in Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) as of the most recent 13F reporting period, up by three funds from the previous reporting period.

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) shares fell by around 7% this week as bulls tempered their enthusiasm over a potential sale in the near-term. Hurting the M&A speculation was a CNBC report that said that there were ‘no bids on the table’ for the company at the moment. The CNBC report also said that CEO Jack Dorsey has ‘a few more quarters’ to stage a turnaround. Generally, traders consider Twitter less likely to sell itself if the company is trying to turn itself around organically. If Twitter’s turnaround efforts fail on the other hand, the probability of a sale would be higher (although at what price is another question). 30 funds tracked by Insider Monkey owned shares of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) at the end of June, up by three funds from the end of March.

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