Applied Materials, a well-known manufacturer of semiconductor equipment, which serves as an essential part of the production process for factories of Taiwan Semiconductor, Intel, Global Foundries, Huawei and also contributed much to liquid crystal screens and solar cells, is slowly but surely expanding its mid-term rally. Lithography, being the basic technology for etching extremely small elements onto a silicon surface to grow nanotubes and transistor schemes, ion implantation and molecular layering are forming only a general summary of the odds the company offers to modern technologies.

Its share price initially fell by nearly 2.75% during May 17 trading session on Wall Street, even though the issuer surpassed expert consensus estimates in both top and bottom lines of its quarterly report. However, this effect was most likely technically natural with a massive take profit after a more than 15% rise on highly positive expectations in the previous three weeks, which followed large-scaled dip buying late April. Thus, the stock quickly recovered and even renewed the record peaks already on May 20, when Applied Materials climbed by 3.7% to touch the landmark of $220 per share for the first time in its history. This stage of integral ascending completed to be successfully continued, while next target areas around $250 per share for nearest months could probably be considered by large investment houses and the broader market community.

Applied Materials' adjusted EPS (earnings per share) of $2.09 for the last three months to end on April 28, were 4.5% up from $2.00 per share YoY, while its sales number slightly rose to $6.65 billion from $6.63 billion, mostly in line but little better with average forecasts for EPS of $1.99 on revenue of $6.54 billion. Gross margin increased from 46.8% to 47.5%, all thanks to stronger growth in China where sales doubled to $2.83 billion from $1.41 billion in the same period of 2023. Meanwhile, the company shifted its focus from the U.S. where sales dropped to $0.853 billion from $1.11 billion. The AI (artificial intelligence) wave is boosting chip demand again, and so AMAT CEOs projected the company's EPS for the Q2 2024 in the range between $1.83 and $2.19 per share, on sales of about $6.65 billion, plus or minus $400 million. Consensus forecast on Wall Street was lower, at $1.97 per share of EPS on $6.59 billion in sales. This may boost possible re-evaluation of the stock soon. To summarize, AMAT remains a very popular investment choice at the moment.