Why Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Stock Dropped Today

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What:Shares ofAdvanced Micro Devices were down 14.1% as of 10:48 a.m. Friday after the company announced disappointing first-quarter results.

So what:Quarterly revenue fell 26% year over year to $1.03 billion, which translated to an adjusted net loss of $73 million, or $0.09 per share. Analysts, on average, were looking for a much narrower loss of $0.05 per share on higher revenue of $1.05 billion.

Even so, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said: "Building great products, driving deeper customer relationships and simplifying our business remain the right long-term steps to strengthen AMD and improve our financial performance."

Now what:For now, Su elaborated, that means focusing "on improving our near-term financial results and delivering a stronger second half of the year based on completing our work to rebalance channel inventories and shipping strong new products."

For the current quarter, AMD expects revenue to decrease 3% sequentially, plus or minus 3% -- or a range of roughly $0.97 billion to $1.03 billion. Analysts were modeling sequential quarterly growth in revenue of 9.7% to $1.13 billion.

In the end, it's hard to blame the market for bidding shares of AMD down today given both its modest quarterly miss and lighter-than-expected guidance. Until AMD can show some tangible progress toward achieving its goal of sustained profitability -- which starts with improved financial results in the second half of the year -- I fear long investors will likely endure more pain going forward.

The article Why Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Stock Dropped Today originally appeared on Fool.com.

Steve Symington has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.