Key Takeaways
- Intel stock is down 15% in the past month (through Monday’s close), giving back a 12% jump on Sept. 21 and more as AI chip stocks sold off.
- TSMC turned up twice in Intel’s foundry plans this month: in Elon Musk’s Terafab talks and as a backup for Intel’s advanced packaging.
- Intel trades at about 52x forward earnings, near its five-year average, and KeyBanc’s $155 target works out to about 50x analysts’ 2028 earnings estimate.
- The $117 consensus target looks like the fairer bar, and third-quarter results after the close on Oct. 29 are the next test.
Intel (INTC) stock is down 15.3% in the past month (through Monday’s close), while the S&P 500 rose 0.6%.
KeyBanc’s John Vinh isn’t flinching. He kept his Buy rating and $155 price target on Oct. 15, 68% above Monday’s close.
From a 12% pop to a 15% drop
The month started with Intel’s biggest day in months: a 12.1% jump on Sept. 21, as the buzz around Meta Platforms (META) and its Muse agent app set off a rally in CPU stocks. CEO Lip-Bu Tan had just said Intel could meet only about half of CPU demand. That made Intel an easy pick for the bet that agents like Meta’s need far more CPUs.
But that bet rests on AI spending… and the next four weeks put that in doubt:
- Sept. 28: down 5.7% as yields rose and OpenAI paused its top models
- Oct. 8: down 5.3% as a [Financial Times report](LINK NEEDED) questioned OpenAI’s revenue (Intel had no news)
- The week of Oct. 12: down about 14%, on Chinese competition, financing worries, hot inflation and slowing growth at Anthropic
Arm Holdings (ARM) rallied alongside Intel on Sept. 21, and Arm has fallen even further since: 17.3% over the same month.
TSMC keeps showing up in Intel’s plans
The foundry story had a rough month too. On Oct. 3, Elon Musk disclosed talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) about Terafab, the chip project Intel joined in April. Tan said Intel would keep working on it.
Then on Oct. 15, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei offered to support customers who can’t get enough of Intel’s EMIB-T packaging capacity. Packaging is the foundry business Intel expects to ramp first. CFO David Zinsner sees packaging revenue ramping in the back half of 2027 at around a 40% gross margin, and no customer has been named yet. TSMC chasing those buyers could squeeze pricing.
Intel also hasn’t said whether the deadly Oct. 14 explosion at its Kiryat Gat fab in Israel hit output.
Oct. 29 is the real test
Intel reports third-quarter results after the close on Oct. 29. Revenue has beaten consensus five quarters running, and analysts expect about $16.4 billion this time, against the $16.8 billion top of guidance.
Analysts still expect normalized EPS to climb from $0.42 in 2025 to $1.53 this year and $3.09 in 2028.
None of this month’s drops came with a guidance cut, so I see no reason for those estimates to fall before Oct. 29.
Does $155 add up?
So the selloff came out of the multiple. Intel traded at 52.4x forward earnings on Friday, down from 63x on Oct. 8 and near its five-year average of 49.9x.
KeyBanc’s target asks for more. Put that roughly 50x average on analysts’ $3.09 for 2028, and you get about $155. That’s the stock’s usual multiple on earnings two years out, in a 12-month call.
The consensus target is more measured: $117, about 28% above Monday’s close, and it barely budged through the drop.
Even JPMorgan’s Harlan Sur, bearish for four years, upgraded Intel to Neutral on Monday (“Our confidence is building”), though his $85 target sits below the stock.
My take: for anyone who believes in the foundry turnaround, Intel is a better buy than it was a month ago, and $117 looks like a fair bar. KeyBanc’s $155 is plausible but stretched: it needs packaging customers to arrive on schedule, with TSMC now competing for them.
Oct. 29 is the first check. A fourth-quarter gross margin guide at or above the third quarter’s 42% midpoint would go a long way. So would 2027 capex that keeps analysts’ 2028 free cash flow turn intact.
So what is Intel stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
