Intel is soaring after an earnings beat. These two Wall Street firms call the stock a buy
Intel is poised for a big bounce after its first quarter financial results showed that the once struggling chipmaker is succeeding at refashioning itself into one of the leading U.S.-based suppliers of AI hardware, according to two banks on Wall Street. Intel shares are soaring 25% in premarket trading Friday. Evercore ISI hiked its rating on Intel to outperform from in line after the latest numbers were released postmarket Thursday, lifting 12-month price target on the shares to $111 from $45. Intel’s trading close to $67 early Friday. Citigroup also upgraded Intel to buy from neutral after the latest earnings. The bank’s analyst boosted Citi’s price target on Intel to $95 from $48. “It has been easy to not like INTC… but three things have changed,” Evercore analyst Mark Lipacis said Friday in a note to clients. “The fastest growing AI workloads need a lot more [central processing units] … [and] INTC’s new CEO fixed the balance sheet, and is executing on a strategy that appears to have put INTC back on the competitive track.” Intel also has a geopolitical advantage, Citigroup said, noting its unique position “as the only U.S.-based leading edge maker of chips,” and recent alliances with the federal government, Nvidia and Tesla . The bank expects more such agreements, it said. Encouraging earnings Intel reported first-quarter earnings of 29 cents per share, topping analysts’ consensus estimate of one cent, LSEG data shows. Revenue of $13.58 billion also topped the $12.42 billion analysts polled by LSEG had forecast. Before Friday, Intel had already soared 211% over the past year as the artificial intelligence industry expands in the U.S. and abroad. INTC 1Y mountain Intel shares have soared 211% in 12 months Amid the boom, Nvidia and SoftBank have made major investments in Intel. The U.S. government has poured roughly $11 billion into the chipmaker to help bring semiconductor manufacturing stateside, the company said last August. The partnerships reflect growing appetite for domestically-manufactured chips capable of powering AI bots — a trend likely to give a sustained boost to Intel stock, according to Citi. “Improving agentic AI driven CPU demand … should lift all the CPU suppliers’ sales in the coming years,” Citi analyst Atif Malik said Friday in a note to clients. Intel now expects its CPU business to post double-digit growth in 2026, according to Citi, “up from their prior expectations of only slight growth six months ago, with unit growth being the primary driver and [average selling prices] benefiting from higher core counts,” Malik wrote. Intel expects to sustain those gains in 2027, the analyst added. New management after a 2025 shakeup is another tailwind. In March 2025, veteran semiconductor executive Lip-Bu Tan took the reins at Intel. Since then, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel’s operating margins have improved by 500 basis points, or five full percentage points, while its net-debt position has improved by $17 billion. The Street has been late to Intel’s turnaround and the rebound in its stock. Of the 47 analysts covering Intel, 34 only have a hold rating on the stock, while just nine rate it a buy or strong buy on shares.
