ADI
Analog Devices, Inc.
stock NASDAQ

OH BOY THIS IS MAY FAVORITE TOPIC I MUST HAVE MADE THIS WITH MY ALT ACCOUNT! that or the trolls really love me today.
some facts (and yes i used AI to organize my thoughts because i am highly regarded):
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# The Case for AMD Offering a Dividend
scroll down for TLDR (short version of this).
## 1. AMD stands alone among large semis without one
AMD is one of only a handful of major semiconductor companies without a dividend, and the only large-cap US fabless logic company at this scale that does not pay one. Among the top 25 semis by market cap, the non-payers are concentrated in either pre-profit/strategic categories (ARM, Cambricon, SMIC), restructuring/turnaround situations (INTC, which suspended its dividend entirely), or pure-software EDA (SNPS). AMD is the conspicuous outlier among mature, profitable, large-cap chip designers.
**Top 25 Semiconductor Companies by Market Cap:**
\# | Ticker | Company | Country | Segment | Index | Price | Market Cap | Div Yield
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
1 | NVDA | NVIDIA | USA | Fabless (GPU/AI) | PHLX SOX | $209.25 | $5.086 T | 0.02%
2 | TSM | TSMC (ADR) | Taiwan | Foundry | PHLX SOX | $393.83 | $2.043 T | 0.91%
3 | AVGO | Broadcom | USA | Fabless (networking/ASIC) | PHLX SOX | $405.45 | $1.920 T | 0.49%
4 | 005930.KS\* | Samsung Electronics | S. Korea | IDM (memory/foundry) | KOSPI | n/a | $885.6 B | 0.63%
5 | MU | Micron Technology | USA | Memory IDM (DRAM/HBM) | PHLX SOX | $518.46 | $584.7 B | 0.08%
6 | **AMD** | **Advanced Micro Devices** | **USA** | **Fabless (CPU/GPU)** | **PHLX SOX** | **$337.11** | **$549.6 B** | **n/a**
7 | ASML | ASML Holding | Netherlands | Equipment (EUV litho) | PHLX SOX | $1,394.08 | $537.3 B | 0.52%
8 | INTC | Intel | USA | IDM (logic/foundry) | PHLX SOX | $94.75 | $476.2 B | n/a
9 | 000660.KS\* | SK hynix | S. Korea | Memory IDM (DRAM/HBM) | KOSPI | n/a | $461.9 B | 0.29%
10 | LRCX | Lam Research | USA | Equipment (etch/dep) | PHLX SOX | $248.75 | $311.1 B | 0.38%
11 | AMAT | Applied Materials | USA | Equipment (broad) | PHLX SOX | $382.59 | $303.6 B | 0.46%
12 | TXN | Texas Instruments | USA | IDM (analog/embedded) | PHLX SOX | $269.22 | $245.0 B | 2.58%
13 | KLAC | KLA Corp | USA | Equipment (metrology) | PHLX SOX | $1,816.21 | $238.6 B | 0.43%
14 | ARM | Arm Holdings (ADR) | UK | IP / Design | Nasdaq-100 | $201.69 | $214.2 B | n/a
15 | ADI | Analog Devices | USA | IDM (analog/mixed) | PHLX SOX | $389.31 | $190.1 B | 1.16%
16 | QCOM | Qualcomm | USA | Fabless (mobile/auto) | PHLX SOX | $156.00 | $166.6 B | 2.77%
17 | MRVL | Marvell Technology | USA | Fabless (networking/AI) | PHLX SOX | $156.57 | $136.9 B | 0.19%
18 | 8035.T\* | Tokyo Electron | Japan | Equipment (broad) | Nikkei 225 | n/a | $112.8 B | 0.60%
19 | 6857.T\* | Advantest | Japan | Equipment (ATE/test) | Nikkei 225 | n/a | $109.3 B | 0.12%
20 | SNPS | Synopsys | USA | EDA software | S&P 500 / NDX | $481.22 | $92.2 B | n/a
21 | 2454.TW\* | MediaTek | Taiwan | Fabless (mobile SoC) | TWSE / TAIEX | n/a | $84.8 B | 3.41%
22 | MPWR | Monolithic Power Systems | USA | Fabless (power mgmt) | PHLX SOX | $1,526.84 | $75.0 B | 0.34%
23 | 0981.HK\* | SMIC | China | Foundry | Hang Seng | n/a | $71.1 B | n/a
24 | 688256.SS\* | Cambricon | China | Fabless (AI accelerators) | STAR 50 / SSE | n/a | $62.8 B | n/a
25 | IFX.DE\* | Infineon | Germany | IDM (power/auto) | DAX | n/a | $56.7 B | 0.81%
\* Market cap from prior snapshot (~late April 2026), not refreshed. Some figures throughout this post may be slightly stale, but the structural picture has not changed.
## 2. The shorting problem
Without a dividend in place, the cost of holding a short position in AMD is just borrow fees, which on AMD are minimal because shares are easy to locate. Shorts can sit on a losing position effectively indefinitely. Once a dividend exists:
* Short sellers are responsible for paying the dividend on borrowed shares
* Put options become more expensive
* Even a token dividend adds a non-trivial annual cost to short positions
* The dividend itself signals to the market that management believes the shorts are wrong
AMD has one of the highest betas in the sector. A token dividend (even at NVDA's ~0.02% yield) helps lower beta and supports long-term price stability.
## 3. Buybacks aren't actually returning equity to shareholders
* AMD has spent billions on buybacks; share count has not meaningfully declined
* Buybacks at AMD have largely tracked stock-based compensation, meaning they offset dilution rather than return capital
* Buybacks of this scale, paid for straight from quarterly revenue, function in practice closer to C-suite comp offset than shareholder returns
* If the goal is returning capital to shareholders, a dividend is the more direct, transparent, and credible mechanism, and should be in place before any further large buyback programs
## 4. Affordability
* Healthy balance sheet, multi-billion cash position, next to no debt
* 2025 revenue of roughly $35B and net income on the order of several billion
* A token dividend at NVDA-equivalent yield (~0.02%) on a ~$550B market cap is on the order of ~$110M/year, a rounding error against AMD's revenue, profit, and cash position
* Does not materially impact growth investment or M&A capacity
## 5. The "we can't afford it" argument cuts the other way
If the position is that AMD cannot spare ~$110M/year for a token dividend, that same logic applies far more aggressively to buybacks, which run into the billions per year. You cannot simultaneously claim:
1. A dividend in the low hundreds of millions is unaffordable, and
2. Multi-billion-dollar annual buybacks are fine
The dividend is the cheaper, more shareholder-aligned use of capital. If buybacks are affordable, a token dividend is trivially so.
# TLDR
**TL;DR: AMD should start a token dividend, NVDA-style (~$0.01/quarter, ~0.02% yield, ~$110M/year).**
* **AMD is the outlier.** Every other mature, profitable, large-cap chip designer pays one. The non-payers are restructuring (INTC), pre-profit (ARM, SMIC, Cambricon), or pure software (SNPS).
* **Trivially affordable.** ~$110M/year against ~$35B revenue and multi-billion net income. If billion-dollar buybacks are fine, a token dividend is rounding error.
* **Buybacks aren't returning capital.** They've tracked stock-based comp, so share count hasn't meaningfully declined.
* **Raises the cost of shorting AMD.** Borrow fees are minimal, so shorts sit on losing positions forever. A dividend changes that and lowers beta.
* **Opens the door to dividend-screening funds.** Exactly why NVDA pays a penny.
* **"Growth company" rebuttal is wrong.** NVDA, AVGO, TSMC, MU, MRVL, QCOM all pay and are still growth names. Dividends come out of retained earnings, so a token dividend literally cannot reduce reported earnings, EBITDA, margins, or EPS.
* **"Double taxation" rebuttal is wrong.** Buybacks have a 1% excise tax, qualified dividends get cap gains rates, and tax-advantaged accounts pay nothing. At 0.02% yield, tax drag is rounding error.
* **Most pushback is tribal.** "Eww", "growth company lol" isn't an argument. Owning a stock that pays $0.04/yr doesn't make you a dividend investor.

Nice!! I wish there were more of us who've spent careers in directly relevant areas, to modulate some of the reactions to news items and day and swing trading takes on companies whose underlying technologies and business fundamentals are really what make them worthy long term investments. You'll likely appreciate the fact that, because Analog Devices made some of my favorite parts (like the AD574 -- first 12 bit monolithic A/D converter) when I was designing my first speech recognition system prototypes, we first bought ADI as an individual stock. Then TI (I also wrote bare metal code for their 67xx series of DSP's, and of course have parts drawers full of 7400 series TTL, mostly from TI), RFMD, QCOM, SWKS, until Nvidia now. #:')