It has been nothing short of a roller coaster year for Super Micro Computer.
Coming into Tuesday, shares of the server maker, once a darling of the artificial-intelligence trade, had fallen 1.3% this year. The benchmark S&P 500 was up 17%.
Super Micro's performance also pales in comparison to how other tech companies have done this year. Artificial intelligence-linked names such as Nvidia and Microsoft are up 40% and 16%, respectively. And Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, two of Super Micro's peers, have gained more than 10% each in 2025.
It isn't as if the stock sagged consistently. Shares surged more than 45% in February, when Super Micro narrowly avoided delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market, capping months of speculation that a failure to file its financial results on time might cost the company its spot in the exchange.
The stock, a winner for the first half of 2024, plunged in August that year, responding to disappointing financial results, a report by a short seller raising concerns about Super Micro's accounting practices, and news that the company would delay filing its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30.
While Super Micro dismissed the report as "rumors and speculation," it said it was delaying the filing because it needed more time to evaluate its "internal controls over financial reporting."
That October, Ernst & Young resigned as the server maker's auditor, saying it was unwilling to be "associated with the financial statements prepared by management."
BDO USA, hired to succeed Ernst & Young as auditor in November 2024, ultimately issued an adverse opinion on the company's internal controls over financial reporting -- an indication that systems in place would likely fail to catch a misstatement in the reports, but far from the worst possible outcome.
While the filing of the delayed reports boosted the stock in February, new concerns soon knocked the shares lower. Super Micro stock fell 17% in March and nearly 7% in April.
Declining momentum in the artificial-intelligence trade was a headwind for the shares. A disappointing earnings report at the end of April and news in March that Singapore was investigating whether Super Micro servers were being used to smuggle Nvidia chips did more damage.
Today, the stock sits more than 70% off the highs it reached in early 2024, when it traded above $100. Super Micro reached a record intraday high of $122.90 on March 8 of that year, and a record closing high of $118.81 on March 13.
Shares have failed to rebound to those levels, even though Super Micro posting three back-to-back months of relatively strong gains between May and July this year. The stock rose more than 20% each time, but Super Micro cratered 35% in November, making it the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500. The dismal performance in this case was triggered by weak first-quarter earnings and a mixed outlook for the fiscal year.
If arguments in research notes are any indication, concerns over Super Micro's potential to gain traction in a crowded market will likely take center stage moving forward. Goldman Sachs said late last month that the company faces a challenging setup coming into 2026, largely due to stiff competition.
While the company's market share among some of the largest cloud-computing providers focused on graphic processing units has been "impressive," Goldman wrote, competition in the AI server market is only increasing as the product becomes more commoditized. That puts pressure on profitability.
In the medium term, Goldman sees a challenge for Super Micro as it goes up against what the firm calls "more enterprise-focused IT hardware suppliers" like Dell and Cisco Systems in the market for AI infrastructure.
