Topline
Intel shares surged to an all-time high on Friday, surpassing a record set during the dot-com bubble decades earlier, after the chipmaker’s latest earnings exceeded Wall Street’s expectations and fueled optimism for the company’s turnaround.
The chipmaker’s shares, in the midst of a yearslong turnaround, matched a 26-year high earlier this month.
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Key Facts
Shares of Intel rallied 24.4% to over $83 as trading opened on Friday, well above the stock’s previous intraday high of $75.81 on Aug. 28, 2000.
Intel on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue of $13.57 billion and $0.29 earnings per share, smashing consensus analyst estimates of $12.4 billion and $0.02, according to FactSet.
The chipmaker projected second-quarter revenue between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion and earnings per share of $0.20, beating projections of $13.7 billion and $0.19.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a statement that Intel had undergone a “reset,” resulting in a sixth-straight quarter of revenue above the company’s expectations as well as “new and deepened relationships with strategic partners.”
Stifel analysts lifted their price target for Intel’s shares and said the company “significantly beat expectations,” noting they remain encouraged by Intel’s “solid execution” in recent quarters as its turnaround has been “significant.”
Big Number
Nearly 211%. That’s how much Intel shares skyrocketed over the last year as of Thursday’s close, far outpacing Nvidia (87.8%) and Broadcom (123%), but still below the growth for competitor AMD, whose shares have rallied 223%. Through its turnaround over the last year, Intel’s market valuation has soared from just over $80 billion to more than $330 billion, its highest level since 2000.
Key Background
Intel, whose shares dropped to their lowest level in more than a decade last year, has fueled renewed investor sentiment since Tan stepped in as chief executive. Tan told Bloomberg that Intel was a “fundamentally different company” than when he became CEO in 2025, adding the “conversation about Intel was about whether we could survive,” and now it’s about how the company can “scale our supply to meet the enormous demand for our products.” Its earnings are the latest sign of optimism for Intel’s turnaround, following a $14.2 billion deal to buy back half of a plant in Ireland from Apollo Global Management. Intel then said it would develop semiconductors for Elon Musk’s Tesla, SpaceX and Tesla, after announcing a commitment from Google to use future generations of Intel’s processors in its data centers.
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