New York, Feb 18, 2026, 17:29 (EST) — After-hours
- Advanced Micro Devices dropped 1.5% to $200.12, bucking the upward move in tech stocks.
- CEO Lisa Su is in line for a $75 million performance equity award, according to a company filing that also laid out 2025 cash bonuses for senior executives.
- CFO Jean Hu unloaded roughly 20,000 shares, according to another filing, with the sale executed through a pre-arranged trading plan.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) slipped 1.5% to $200.12 by Wednesday’s close. Shares barely budged in after-hours, as investors took in new details on executive compensation and insider deals.
The action was significant; traders remain glued to every swing between AI-chip winners and laggards, while governance news continues to tug on sentiment with valuations stretched. Nvidia drew investors in this day, but AMD got little of the benefit.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.56%, while the Nasdaq gained 0.78% as megacap tech names found some footing following recent turbulence. “At a certain point, weakness in tech was bound to bring in the marginal buyer,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird. 1
Nvidia (NVDA.O) moved higher after announcing a multiyear agreement to supply Meta Platforms with millions of AI chips—both the current lineup and upcoming models. The deal also covers CPUs that go up against offerings from Intel and AMD. Ian Buck, who leads Nvidia’s hyperscale and high-performance computing, described the company’s next-gen Vera processor as “an excellent data center-only CPU,” saying the product stays focused on that track. 2
Traders sifted through AMD’s latest filings after the company revealed its board handed CEO Lisa Su a $3.13 million annual cash bonus for fiscal 2025. There’s also a fresh, one-time long-term equity package in the mix: a $75 million target value, contingent on AMD hitting stock-price milestones through March 2031. The grant date lands on March 15, according to the filing, and payout could run anywhere from nothing up to double the target, depending on which hurdles get met. 3
CFO Jean Hu unloaded 19,956 shares of AMD on Feb. 17, a Form 4 filing showed. The stock traded at a weighted-average range from about $197 to $205, netting her around $4.0 million based on those averages. According to the disclosure, these sales were carried out under a Rule 10b5-1 plan set up back on Aug. 22, 2025. 4
AMD’s AI roadmap is under scrutiny from investors. Anush Elangovan, a corporate vice president for software development at AMD, dismissed talk of delays for the company’s MI455X, firing back on X: “Well, your assessment is still wrong… On target for 2H 2026.” The company maintains it’s sticking to schedule. 5
The risk here is pretty clear. If Nvidia ramps up its move into standalone data-center CPUs and rack-scale systems, AMD’s opportunity to grab a bigger share of those same budgets could shrink fast. And if AMD’s own system launches lag—or if customer deployments drag—the impact on orders would probably be visible right away.
Now, all eyes shift to Nvidia, with traders zeroing in on the company’s earnings and guidance set for Feb. 25. The numbers usually set the tone for AI infrastructure stocks—and the broader chip sector tends to move in lockstep. 6
