Up until today, things had not looked well for chip stock Intel (INTC). In fact, reports noted that Intel recently hit a 16-year low in its share price. But that turned around rather quickly, especially when word of tariff relief came in, and Intel shares blasted up over 16% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
Reports noted that Tuesday’s trading saw Intel fall around 7.3%, which left it to close at $18.13. That represented the lowest point Intel shares had seen since 2009. But that particular drop to fire sale prices must have galvanized Intel investors, who poured back in in grand style to pick up bargains, buoyed by the announcement of tariff relief to at least some countries.
While the emergence of new CEO Lip-Bu Tan is certainly helping, as is the announcement of some new deals, there is still clearly some concern about Intel’s ability to compete going forward. But with Intel getting its 18A manufacturing process together—which it hopes will fire up its foundry operations—the end result is that there is investment coming back into Intel once more.
A New AI Connection
Meanwhile, Intel—likely realizing it was behind the curve on artificial intelligence (AI) applications—is readying a new program on this front as well. Backed up by Riverbed Technology LLC, a new “unified platform” is offering up the ability to set measurable outcomes for artificial intelligence.
With this new partnership deal in place, Riverbed now has access to a range of “low-level system interfaces,” which in turn will bring more ability to measure performance to AI operations. It also brings in a slate of new diagnostic tools and “…real-time performance insight that other vendors just can’t offer,” noted Riverbed CEO Dave Donatelli. The results are already noteworthy; one bank that used Riverbed’s new systems managed to cut calls to the help desk by 75,000 monthly. Mean time to repair systems, meanwhile, dropped 25%.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 27 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 42.99% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $23.12 per share implies 11.96% upside potential.
