What Happened?

Shares of semiconductor photomask manufacturer Photronics (NASDAQ: PLAB) jumped 13.9% in the morning session after the company reported fourth-quarter 2025 results that beat Wall Street's expectations for both revenue and earnings. 

Revenue grew 6.1% year on year to $225.1 million, exceeding analyst forecasts. The company's profitability was also a bright spot, with adjusted earnings per share of $0.61, comfortably surpassing the consensus estimate of $0.53. Looking ahead, while Photronics's revenue guidance for the next quarter was in line with estimates, its earnings forecast was slightly better than anticipated. The solid performance, characterized by beats on both the top and bottom lines coupled with a decent outlook, appeared to boost investor confidence.

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What Is The Market Telling Us

Photronics’s shares are very volatile and have had 27 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Photronics and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was about 22 hours ago when the stock gained 3.8% on the news that the semiconductor sector received a major boost as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) secured a deal to sell up to US$60 billion in artificial intelligence chips to Meta Platforms over five years. 

This landmark agreement, which also allows Meta to purchase as much as 10% of the chip firm, is one of the latest blockbuster deals in the artificial intelligence space, signaling massive investment by tech giants. The news prompted a significant rally in AMD's shares, which jumped more than 10% in premarket trading. The deal not only highlights the immense demand for specialized AI hardware but also contributed to a broader rebound in technology stocks, helping to ease recent investor fears about the disruptive impacts of AI.

Photronics is up 27% since the beginning of the year, and at $42.44 per share, has set a new 52-week high. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Photronics’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $3,510.

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