Applied Materials Earnings: Record Q3, a $700m Guide Beat, and the Stock Fell

Updated August 14, after the close: AMAT settled near $506, and the week ended where it started

AMAT closed Friday's regular session at $507.18, down 5.12% from Thursday's $534.54, per stockanalysis.com timestamped 4:00pm ET. The session opened at $499.40, ran as high as $523.00 and as low as $497.10 on about 10.5 million shares.

One number I could not settle. The same site's history table records Friday's close as $506.00 rather than the $507.18 on its quote page, and I could not reconcile the roughly one-dollar gap this evening. Yahoo Finance was serving a 10:48am quote of $510.06 when I checked, which is a mid-session read and not a close, so it does not break the tie. Everything below holds at either figure, and I say where it would not.

Row 1's pass on a pre-print options position is close to a wash. It was written against roughly $508 on August 3. Eleven days, a record quarter, a $700 million guide beat and a 5% drawdown later, the stock closed within about a dollar of where that row was struck. Standing aside cost nothing and made nothing.

Row 2's conditional post-print long triggered and is under water. The row said it would be struck off the August 14 open if the FQ4 guide confirmed the 30%-plus systems trajectory. The guide did confirm it, the open was $499.40, and the close at $507.18 puts that entry about 1.6% ahead. That is the whole position so far: a beat, a raise, and a stock that has to climb roughly 5% to get back to where it was before the print.

The volatility play carries the interesting result, and it sits in the decision piece. The straddle needed the close beyond $591 or $509. It got $507.18, which pays by less than two dollars. Whether the thesis behind it was right is a genuinely closer call, and that piece works through why.

Updated August 14, 5:10am ET: the premarket print is confirmed on a second feed, at $505.93

stockanalysis.com has AMAT at $505.93, down 5.35%, timestamped 5:05am ET, and Yahoo Finance has $506.60, down 5.23%, at 4:47am. Both subtract exactly to Thursday's $534.54 close. That settles the sourcing limit on the 4:10am block below, and the drift is mildly lower across the hour, not a recovery.

Where the $549.99 came from. Yahoo's quote page still lists $548.15, Wednesday's close, as its previous close. A feed reading that field publishes a Wednesday-anchored Friday quote, which is what those aggregators are carrying.

A premarket print on light volume is not a session. The $10.25 billion FQ4 guide has not changed since Thursday evening, and the only thing that has moved is what the market will pay for it.

Updated August 14, 4:10am ET: the premarket opened lower again, at $507.90

AMAT's first premarket print of Friday was $507.90, down 4.98% from Thursday's $534.54 close, per stockanalysis.com, timestamped 4:00am ET. That extends Thursday evening's roughly 3% drop rather than taking it back.

Two limits on that number. It is the opening minute of the premarket on thin volume, and it is the only live quote I could reach at this hour. A $549.99 print is also circulating on several aggregators this morning: it reconciles against nothing, sitting a whisker under Wednesday's $548.15 close rather than anywhere near Thursday's, and I am not treating it as a Friday price.

Row 2's conditional long strikes against the open, on the terms the row was written on, and the open is now shaping up near $508 rather than the $516 of Thursday evening. Nothing in the FQ4 guide changed overnight. The multiple did.

Updated August 13, after the close: every number cleared, and the stock still went down

Applied Materials beat the quarter and then beat the guide by a distance. Fiscal Q3 revenue came in at $9.115 billion, up 25% from $7.302 billion, above both the $8.95 billion guide and the roughly $9.00 billion consensus. Non-GAAP EPS was $3.50, up 41% from $2.48, clearing the $3.36 guide and the $3.39-3.40 consensus. GAAP EPS was $3.17, up 43%. Non-GAAP gross margin reached 50.4%, a 1.5 point gain, and non-GAAP operating income hit a record $3.10 billion, 34.0% of revenue. Source: Applied Materials' FQ3 2026 press release.

The FQ4 guide was the event, and it landed about $700 million clear. Management guided $10.25 billion plus or minus $500 million against a Street figure near $9.54 billion (FactSet, via MarketScreener), with non-GAAP EPS of $4.02 plus or minus $0.20. Even the bottom of that range, $9.75 billion, sits above where consensus had the midpoint. Applied also raised its calendar 2026 Semiconductor Systems expectation again and said it expects another strong growth year in 2027.

The scoreboard this preview set was cleared, not merely met. The question here was whether the 30%-plus systems trajectory survived contact with export controls and customer scheduling. It did: Semiconductor Systems revenue was $7.040 billion against $5.564 billion a year ago, with the mix running 67% foundry/logic, 26% DRAM, 7% flash. Applied Global Services added $1.781 billion and Display $294 million, and the three sum to the reported total exactly.

China came in lighter than the preview's "roughly a quarter" framing suggested, at 28% of revenue ($2.506 billion), down from 35%. The release also carries a $253 million settlement with the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security over the previously disclosed export-controls matter.

The tape disagreed with all of it. AMAT closed the regular session down 2.48% at $534.54, which happened before the release, then traded near $516 in extended hours, about 3% lower again, at 4:49pm ET. Reported reaction figures ranged from -2.5% to -3.5% across the first hour, so treat the magnitude as a moving extended-hours quote rather than a settled number.

One line I could not close. GAAP EPS of $3.17 and non-GAAP EPS of $3.50 differ by $0.33, but GAAP and non-GAAP operating income differ by only $20 million. The gap therefore sits below the operating line rather than in operations, and I could not source the full reconciliation tonight, so I am not attributing it to the BIS settlement or anything else.

How the logged plays stand. Row 1's pass on any pre-print options position is scored against a roughly 6% move from the $508 spot it was written at. Row 2's conditional post-print long is triggered on its own terms: the FQ4 guide confirmed the systems trajectory. It gets struck against the August 14 open and scored from there, which is what the row said it would do. The volatility play logged in the decision piece is closer to paying than the shares, and that piece carries the scoring.

Beat, raised, and sold. The order book was never the argument against this stock; the multiple was.

TL;DR

• Applied Materials reports fiscal Q3 2026 results Thursday, August 13, after the close (date per multiple outlets; the company's own advisory page was unreachable for confirmation at writing).
• The guide is the consensus: management guided revenue of $8.95 billion plus or minus $500 million, up about 23%, and adjusted EPS of $3.36 plus or minus $0.20, up about 36% from $2.48, and the Street has settled exactly on the midpoints. The bar is not the print, it is the FQ4 guide.
• The demand backdrop got louder while the stock fell: Samsung says the memory shortage lasts into 2028 and is building capacity, TSMC raised 2026 capex to $60-64 billion, and AMAT itself has guided its semiconductor systems business to grow 30%-plus in calendar 2026 with advanced packaging up 50%-plus.
• The tape has been vicious: a June record, then a ~40% drawdown into the late-July chip selloff, then a 15% single-day rebound on July 30 in the memory relief rally. Monday's close sat around $508, still more than 30% below the high.
• The known cost: new US export restrictions that AMAT expects to remove $600-710 million of fiscal 2026 revenue, with China now roughly a quarter of sales versus ~40% in 2023.

When Does Applied Materials Report Earnings?

Thursday August 13, after the close. It is the biggest semicap read between now and Nvidia on August 26, and the first since the memory complex turned. Next week's slate is in the earnings calendar.

The Board

The customers keep raising capex. The stock keeps crashing anyway. One of those is wrong.

The Guide Is Already the Consensus, So the Guide Is the Print

AMAT guided $8.95 billion and $3.36 in May and consensus sits precisely there, the pre-agreed-headline setup this season keeps repeating. What is not pre-agreed: the FQ4 guide, and whether management's own promise, semi systems up 30%-plus for calendar 2026, advanced packaging up 50%-plus, survives contact with export controls and customer scheduling. The last quarter was a record ($7.91 billion, 50% gross margin); records are the baseline now.

The Memory Argument Runs Through This Print

The reason AMAT belongs on this site's calendar: it is the arms dealer for the memory capex cycle we have been tracking since July, the dead-cat-bounce question included. The demand claims have only escalated: Samsung publicly sees the shortage into 2028 and is adding a Pyeongtaek fab, TSMC lifted capex to $60-64 billion, and every HBM roadmap requires more of exactly the deposition, etch and advanced-packaging tools AMAT sells. If those capex numbers are real, AMAT's FQ4 guide should show it; a soft guide from the toolmaker would be the first hard evidence against the whole memory thesis, worth more than any single memory maker's print.

China Is the Known Subtraction

The export-control arithmetic, as AMAT has framed it: a $600-710 million fiscal 2026 revenue hit from new license requirements, with China revenue already compressed to roughly a quarter of sales from ~40% in 2023. That number is guided-in, but any update to it moves the stock, in either direction: relief from license grants, or a wider definition of restricted tools.

The Options Angle

No current implied move was sourceable (circulating quotes trace to the May print), so no volatility plays are logged. Note the tape's own statement instead: this stock moved 15% in a single session on July 30 without any company news. Realised volatility in the semicap complex is running far above anything options normally price, which is the season's calibration lesson in its purest form.

Trade log

The One-Line Read

Applied Materials reports with its customers publicly promising the biggest equipment spending wave in memory's history and its own stock priced 30% below June, and Thursday's FQ4 guide is where those two stories finally have to reconcile: the toolmaker's order book is the one place the memory supercycle cannot hide.