Intel stock (INTC) seems like it should be a winner, capturing artificial intelligence upside alongside a wider proliferation of advanced computing requirements as we increasingly digitize our economy.
But that isn’t quite the case. Poor operational decisions and financial mismanagement have put Intel stock in investors’ spotlights — but not for the right reasons.
Despite a per-share boost late last year, Intel’s stock price is struggling, and analysts generally see limited upside from now on.
In our Intel stock forecast, we examine the reasoning behind analysts’ INTC predictions and the specific price targets for 2024, 2025, and beyond.
Key Takeaways
- Intel’s most recent earnings report included lackluster performance but, worse yet, a poor outlook for the next earnings period.
- Intel is increasingly seen as a legacy chipmaker, edged out by more forward-thinking firms.
- The company is proactively protecting global supply chains, which could prove beneficial.
- Analysts are overwhelmingly bearish, with most seeing limited upside from today’s per-share pricing.
- Most “best case” estimates center around that Intel likely won’t fall much further – not a strong endorsement.
Summary of the Latest Intel Stock Predictions
| Intel Stock Forecast (May 23, 2024) | 1-Year Forecast | 2025 (December) | 5-Year Forecast (May 2029) |
| MarketBeat | $39.58 | – | – |
| TipRanks | $37.87 | – | – |
| Morningstar | $35.00 | – | – |
| Yahoo! Finance | $38.89 | – | – |
| WalletInvestor | $24.78 | $20.93 | – |
| CoinCodex | $?34.60 | – | $?52.16 |
Intel Stock Analysis: A Year in Review
Investors holding Intel stock over the past year are likely disappointed today. Intel’s per-share pricing is just a hair above May 2023’s levels, though the stock saw a solid surge to around $50 in December 2023.
The end-of-year bump came largely amid wider artificial intelligence enthusiasm; Intel seemed particularly promising as an AI stock after securing a $3.2 billion strategic investment from the Israeli government and showcasing its offerings in a flashy “AI Everywhere” event.
Unfortunately for Intel, that enthusiasm proved short-lived as reality set in. Today, Intel is the S&P 500’s worst-performing stock, losing more than 36% since January.
Likewise, Intel’s meager 5% gain over the past year far underperforms broad market indices like the S&P 500, which ran 27% over the same period – let alone direct tech competitors like Nvidia (NVDA), who saw shares more than triple since May 2023.
What’s Driving Intel Stock?
While Intel is part of the broader artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and tech-centric sector, a range of specific factors and Intel news contribute to investor interest in the stock.
Meager Earnings, Worse Outlook
Most of Intel’s rapid downside this year came from its first-quarter filing. The earnings report included slim improvements to top- and bottom-line stats.
Still, investors didn’t like management’s Intel stock forecast for the remainder of the fiscal year, which included a projected $0.05 per share loss in the second quarter.
Source: Intel
The company’s debt burden is also high, particularly troubling in today’s high-interest-rate environment. Holding just $21.3 billion in cash, its debt load is more than double at $52.4 billion.
At the same time, its cash flow concerns compound the issue. Intel ate through nearly $12 billion in cash throughout 2023, and management was forced to take desperate measures, including halving its dividend distribution and divesting non-core operational arms.
Stiff Competition
Though Intel was once the name in chipmaking, particularly for CPUs, it’s lost much of its competitive edge to nimbler firms like Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), which increasingly prove themselves able to better adapt to changing economic and market conditions than Intel.
At the same time, some of Intel’s biggest (former) customers, like Apple (AAPL), are increasingly creating core components in-house rather than contracting to third-party manufacturers like Intel – hurting its sales streams and shrinking the company’s overall market share.
Still, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has emphasized that Intel is confident in its foundry business competitiveness and ability to overtake Taiwan’s TSMC.
.@SCClemons: "Are you going to be able to beat TSMC?"@intel CEO @PGelsinger: "Yes. We have laid out a course to rebuild technology, leadership, rebuild manufacturing capabilities." #WES2024 pic.twitter.com/hdRQHxBgcL
— Semafor (@semafor) April 17, 2024
Allied with Israel
It isn’t all bad news for the overall Intel stock forecast — as alluded to earlier, the company signed a fairly hefty deal with Israel late last year to build a $25 billion chip plant, with the regional government contributing a sizable $3.2 billion.
The plan includes expansion of existing infrastructure to, according to Intel, “foster a more resilient global supply chain.”
If the chips (pun intended) fall in Intel’s favor, Southeast Asian supply chain disruptions, as we saw throughout the pandemic, could cripple Taiwan Semiconductor’s contributions to the sector, as much of their infrastructure rests in Taiwan and Japan.
Developing peripheral manufacturing areas is a smart move by Intel that could prove beneficial in the worst-case scenario.
Bottoming Out
If nothing else, some see today’s per-share pricing as the absolute lowest threshold, with limited further downside possible. While that isn’t necessarily a ringing endorsement, it may comfort existing shareholders while allowing traders to take quick profits, assuming the thesis bears out.
Wolfe Research analyst Chris Caso summed up the overall theory behind the bottom, saying:
“With sentiment and expectations lower, we upgrade to [peer perform] but we still don’t see enough earnings power to support a favorable rating.”
In other words, Caso isn’t saying the stock is a hard sell – but it isn’t necessarily worth buying, either.
Intel Stock Outlook: Expert Opinions
On the most bearish side of the spectrum, Stacy Rasgon at Bernstein can’t stand Intel stock, contradicting Caso’s statement by saying that he’d “like to believe the bottom is in but [has] lost count of the times we have heard it.”
Rasgon’s specific outlook on the Intel stock forecast is overwhelmingly bearish. He said:
“And while we believe they are doing everything they can to try to repair things it is clear that the company is profoundly broken, and it will take years to see the fruits of their (currently exhaustive) labor, with success in their endeavors far from assured amid execution difficulties and structural headwinds.”
Morningstar analyst Brian Colello takes a slightly softer approach, downgrading his Intel share price forecast from $40 to $35 but saying that “Intel will benefit from the rise of the AI PC, as well as a recovery in server CPU spending.”
Still, he isn’t too hot on Intel’s long-term potential because “Intel continually faces execution risk associated with keeping pace with Moore’s Law and creating cutting-edge processors,” which create circumstances in which “the firm [loses] market share and [suffers] notable operating losses.”
Blayne Curtis from Jefferies generally agrees with Colello’s price target, though he kept his per-share pricing a tad lower at $34. Goldman Sachs’ Toshiya Hari concurs that the Intel stock price is worth no more than $34, mainly on the heels of the company’s poor earnings report and limited upside potential.
Finally, on the more optimistic side, UBS analysts are largely neutral on their Intel stock predictions but pin their INTC price target at $50.
UBS is among the few analyst firms indicating any upside from today’s Intel stock price. They’re basing the analysis on Intel’s current restructuring efforts rather than any particular operational improvement since the overall “reorganization is expected to provide more transparency into the performance of each segment.”
Latest Intel Stock Forecasts for 2024, 2025 & 2030
According to data aggregated by TipRanks as of May 23, 2024, analyst consensus generally states that the current INTC stock price makes it worth a “Hold.”
Within those polled analysts, Intel stock predictions range from $17 to $68 over the next year, with the broad consensus sitting at $37.87.
Yahoo! Finance has roughly the same numbers for their Intel stock forecast 2024, marking the same upper and lower limits but averaging slightly higher in the middle at $38.89.
The average one-year Intel stock forecast 2024/2025, according to MarketBeat, is for the price to reach $39.58, with the highest projection being $62 and the lowest estimate standing at $17.
The following table shows the 10 latest analysts’ Intel stock predictions as of May 23, 2024.
| Date | Firm | Action | Rating | Price Target | Upside % |
| 5/13/2024 | Jefferies Financial Group | Initiated Coverage | Hold ? Hold | $42.00 ? $34.00 | +13.90% |
| 5/9/2024 | The Goldman Sachs Group | Lower Target | Sell ? Sell | $34.00 ? $30.00 | |
| 4/26/2024 | Wells Fargo & Company | Lower Target | Equal Weight ? Equal Weight | $43.00 ? $38.00 | +19.87% |
| 4/26/2024 | Roth Mkm | Lower Target | Neutral ? Neutral | $45.00 ? $35.00 | +10.41% |
| 4/26/2024 | Truist Financial | Lower Target | Hold ? Hold | $45.00 ? $33.00 | +3.71% |
| 4/26/2024 | Wedbush | Lower Target | Neutral ? Neutral | $40.00 ? $32.50 | +3.37% |
| 4/26/2024 | Barclays | Lower Target | Equal Weight ? Equal Weight | $44.00 ? $40.00 | +27.43% |
| 4/26/2024 | Susquehanna | Lower Target | Neutral ? Neutral | $40.00 ? $35.00 | +11.50% |
| 4/26/2024 | Evercore ISI | Lower Target | In-Line ? In-Line | $40.00 ? $36.00 | +2.53% |
Source: MarketBeat
On a longer timeline, crypto-centric analysts at CoinCodex nevertheless covered the Intel stock forecast for 2025, taking a bearish outlook and calling for only a slight improvement over the next year with a $34.60 price target.
Still, closing the decade, CoinCodex’s Intel stock forecast 2030 suggests a positive breakout. It predicts that INTC shares could climb close to $57.79 by 2030.
Note that analysts’ and algorithm-based projections might prove to be wrong.
The Bottom Line: Should I Invest in Intel?
So, is Intel a buy, hold, or sell? Practically speaking, it hinges on your current relationship with the stock. If you’re a current shareholder, the bottom-barrel pricing seems to be close to its floor, so if your cost basis is significantly higher than today’s pricing, you could just hold and wait.
Likewise, quick traders may see a slight bounce if they buy at today’s pricing after the share price’s precipitous post-earnings fall.
In the long run, though? For now, Intel stock is generally thought of as one to avoid, especially considering how many more appealing alternatives are available within the same sector.
Do your own research and always remember your investment decision depends on your attitude to risk, your expertise in the stock market, the spread of your portfolio, and how comfortable you feel about losing money.
The information in this article does not constitute investment advice and is meant for informational purposes only.
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References
- Israel grants Intel $3.2 billion for new $25 billion chip plant?(Reuters)
- Intel debuts Core Ultra processors at AI Everywhere event?(Finance.yahoo)
- YTD Return of Companies in the S&P 500?(Slickcharts)
- Intel Reports First-Quarter 2024 Financial Results?(D1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront)
- Mac computers with Apple silicon – Apple Support?(Support.apple)
- Intel’s stock has fallen far enough, this analyst says?(Morningstar)
- Intel’s bad year worsens, with analyst decrying company as ‘profoundly broken’?(Morningstar)
- Intel’s Strategy Has Many Moving Parts but We Think It’s on the Right Track?(Morningstar)
- Jefferies Assumes Intel at Hold, Lowers Price Target of $34?(Sahmcapital)
- Goldman Sachs Analyst Lowers Intel’s Price Target by 12.8% on Delayed Recovery?(Wallstreetzen)
- UBS raises Intel stock target on Foundry outlook?(Investing)
- Intel (INTC) Stock Forecast & Price Target?(Tipranks)
- Intel Corporation (INTC)?(Finance.yahoo)
- Intel (INTC) Stock Forecast & Price Target?(Marketbeat)
- Intel (INTC) Stock Forecast & Price Prediction 2025, 2030?(Coincodex)
Jasper Lawler
Financial expertJasper cut his teeth on Wall Street as a stockbroker and honed his analytical skills with the City of London's top trading firms. Today, he applies his financial expertise to content creation as the founder of Trading Writers, a niche content marketing agency for the finance sector. Jasper's articles can be found on Techopedia, Seeking Alpha, UK Investor Magazine, Trade2win, Investing.com, FXStreet, Trading212.com, FlowBank.com, and Capital.com. His analysis has been quoted in prestigious publications such as the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, AFP, and City AM. Jasper's transition from stockbroker to content creator highlights his deep understanding of the financial markets…
