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Market Madness Round 2: AMD vs AbbVie

In this second-round matchup, the cutting-edge chipmaker goes head-to-head against the global drugmaker.

March 22, 2023

Welcome to our 7investing Market Madness competition!

Throughout this campaign, we’re matching popular stocks up against one another to determine which will be the best investment over the next three years. And then, by voting in the poll at the bottom of the article, you can help us determine which stock will go on to the next round.

Our first round is now completed and it was quite eventful. By the numbers, we saw upsets in six of the eight pairings. As a reminder, our rankings are based upon 2022 performance — where the top seed had the highest total investing return last year. And our scores/outcomes correspond to the actual voting results that came from our interactive Twitter polls.

Here is a full recap of our first round matchups and where we stand today:

  1. UPSET: Upstart Holdings (our #16 seed) defeated Exxon Mobil (#1 seed), 71-29
  2. AbbVie (#2) defeated Coinbase (#15), 65-35
  3. UPSET: SoFi Technologies (#14) defeated Microsoft (#3), 57-43
  4. UPSET: Tesla (#13) defeated Moderna (#4), 76-24
  5. Apple (#5) defeated Meta Platforms (#12), 61-39
  6. UPSET: Datadog (#11) defeated Alphabet (#6), 62-38
  7. UPSET: Advanced Micro Devices (#10) defeated Disney (#7), 76-24
  8. UPSET: NVIDIA (#9) defeated Intel (#8), 66-34

Our first-round voting results suggest there is hope for a market recovery. 2022 was a market that rewarded stable Blue Chips (which is why Exxon, AbbVie, and Microsoft drew the top three seeds) but often punished smaller-cap and higher-beta stocks. It appears our voting audience has a much more bullish tone for the stock market’s upcoming three years.

On to the Second Round

Our March tournament marches onward, and our second-round matchups are quite a bit harder! The winners of the first round now go head-to-head in our Elite Eight pairings:

  1. Upstart Holdings (#16) defeated NVIDIA (#9), 52-48
  2. Apple (#5) vs Tesla (#13)
  3. Datadog (#11) vs SoFi Technologies (#14)
  4. AMD (#10) vs AbbVie (#2)

In this second-round matchup, the innovative chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) squares up against the pharmaceutical juggernaut AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV).

7investing advisor Luke Hallard sung the praises of AMD’s expansion into the data center, where its high-performance EPYC processors are gaining serious traction with every one of the Cloud Titans. After more than 50 years of research and development, AMD has amassed one of the chip industry’s broadest product portfolios that appeals to a wide variety of customer applications. Yet just like its chip cousin NVIDIA, AMD’s reliance on foreign chip manufacturers similarly exposes it to rising geopolitical risks.

Dana Abramovitz made a compelling case that AbbVie’s pharmaceutical product line is in great shape. Even though there are looming risks about the upcoming expiration of Humira’s patents, a growing sales contribution from commercially-available Skyrizi and Rinvoq and a strong pipeline of new drug candidates are providing plenty of bench support. A cash-flow machine who generously rewards investors through its rising dividend, AbbVie’s stock looks healthy in any market macroenvironment.

Cast Your Vote!

Which of these two stocks do you believe will provide the greater forward three-year return? Cast your vote in our poll below!

Our Market Madness tournament is in support of our new 7investing Starter membership, which we are giving away free during the entire month of March. To learn more about Starter — including how and why it’s already outperforming the S&P by 20 percentage points (as of today, March 22nd) — click here to automatically apply your “madness” promo code and to get started today!

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