Why AMD Shares Are Trading Lower Today

Shares of several companies in the broader tech sector, including $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ , are trading lower Thursday afternoon as investors weigh Wednesday's Fed announcements and assess the tapering outlook.

The Federal Reserve announced that it will stop buying bonds about three months earlier than initially planned. The Fed now plans to trim its monthly Treasury and mortgage-backed security purchases by $30 billion a month starting next month. The new pace is expected to put an end to bond buying by March.

The Fed also announced that it would leave interest rates unchanged at near-zero percent. The announcement paves the way for three interest rate hikes by the end of 2022, which could weigh on tech and growth stocks.

Advanced Micro Devices designs microprocessors for the computer and consumer electronics industries. The majority of the company's sales are in the personal computer and data center markets via CPUs and GPUs.