Here's How AMD Joined the Rule Breakers $1 Trillion Club

In January 2024, Team Rule Breakers recommended Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), a stock that had already climbed hard the year before, in Stock Advisor at $162.67 a share. That's Habit #1 of David Gardner's Rule Breaker framework: Let your winners run. Or as he puts it more bluntly in Rule Breaker Investing: "What do winners do? They win!"

Most investors do the opposite. They comb 52-week lows for bargains and treat a stock that's already run high as a stock that's already missed its chance to explode. Our AMD pick is up 244% since we made the recommendation, beating the S&P 500 by 179%.

Habit #1 of David Gardner's Rule Breaker framework: Let your winners run.

On Monday, AMD closed worth more than $1 trillion for the first time, joining a club that, as of this morning, counts 16 members worldwide.

Team RB had a stake in this outcome five years earlier through a different route: It recommended a chipmaker called Xilinx in March 2019. AMD acquired Xilinx in 2022, and the position carried over onto Rule Breakers' books.

In 2024, the team treated AMD's run-up as confirmation of its potential. Motley Fool investors added to the position, albeit through a different service. That's Habit #2: Add to your winners; never double down on your losers.

In 2009, Team Rule Breakers had already run this exact test on a different chipmaker. The stock had climbed hard since its first recommendation in 2005, and the team broke the first rule most investors are taught by recommending the company again in Stock Advisor. The chipmaker was Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), which crossed $1 trillion in market value in May 2023, 14 years after that second call. Meanwhile, its market cap is more than $5.5 trillion today.

The Trillion-Dollar Club

Two of the 16 trade only abroad or over the counter: Saudi Aramco in Riyadh and Samsung as a U.S. over-the-counter ADR. That leaves 14 U.S.-listed companies worth $1 trillion or more today, AMD included. Of the other 13, eight had already been recommended by Team Rule Breakers or Chief Rule Breaker David Gardner personally before any of them touched the milestone: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Micron (NASDAQ:MU), and Nvidia.

Team Rule Breakers recommended two more after they'd already crossed the line: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in December 2023, more than four years after its 2019 crossing, and Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) in April 2026, over a year after it made the cut. That's the same conviction running from the other direction instead: A company already worth more than most countries' entire economies can still beat the market, and Team Rule Breakers backed that bet without needing the head start.

Habit #2: Add to your winners; never double down on your losers.

Three names on the list -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM), SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKB) -- have not yet made the cut for Team Rule Breakers.

Two of the three, Taiwan Semi and Berkshire Hathaway, have been recommended by Team Hidden Gems multiple times. SpaceX is the only true holdout across both teams, and only because it's been a public company for just a couple months.

Built the Rule Breaker Way

Of the 14 U.S.-listed companies now worth $1 trillion or more, 11 have been recommended by Team Rule Breakers or David Gardner. That pattern traces back to one yardstick: the 6 Traits of a Rule Breaker Stock, which David has used for nearly 30 years to grade every recommendation, AMD included.

Winners win. Rule Breaker investors just have to let them.

The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Broadcom, Eli Lilly, Meta Platforms, Micron Technology, Microsoft, Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.