NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2025, 1:28 a.m. ET — Market closed.
Intel Corporation shares head into Monday’s reopening with investors balancing a powerful 2025 rally against the same question that has stalked the stock for years: can Intel translate ambitious manufacturing roadmaps into predictable execution—and durable profits—fast enough to justify the optimism?
Where Intel stock left off before the weekend
With U.S. exchanges shut for the weekend, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is effectively “on pause” after Friday’s session. The last available trade data show INTC around $36.20, with modest movement into late Friday extended-hours trading (roughly $36.12 near 7:59 p.m. ET, depending on venue). [1]
The price matters not because $36 is magical, but because it’s become a psychological checkpoint: Intel’s shares have staged a dramatic comeback in 2025—yet a growing share of Wall Street research still reads like a cautious engineer’s lab notebook rather than a victory lap.
The big weekend headline: Tan’s “defining year” message
In the most widely circulated Intel-specific headline of the past 24–48 hours, CEO Lip-Bu Tan used year-end messaging to frame 2025 as a turning point—emphasizing cultural change, execution discipline, and rebuilding trust with customers and partners. [2]
Benzinga reported Tan described 2025 as a “defining year,” tying the company’s internal reset to momentum in the stock and renewed confidence from parts of the ecosystem. [3]
On LinkedIn, Tan similarly thanked employees and said he’s encouraged by what he described as a return to an “engineering-centric” and “execution-focused” Intel heading into 2026. [4]
For investors, this is more than holiday-season vibes: messaging like this tends to set expectations for how aggressively management will push cost structure, cadence, and accountability going into earnings season.
Foundry ambition on display: extreme packaging and “big iron” concepts
Another fresh headline feeding the Intel narrative came from the technology side of the world rather than the trading desk.
Tom’s Hardware reported Intel Foundry showcased a concept for an extreme multi-chiplet package—a design that scales far beyond today’s largest AI processors, featuring a large number of compute elements and high-bandwidth memory stacks. The key investor takeaway isn’t that this exact monster package is shipping tomorrow; it’s that Intel is selling a systems story: advanced process nodes plus advanced packaging as a single integrated capability. [5]
Why this matters for the stock: in the AI era, packaging has become strategic. If Intel can credibly compete not only on transistor technology (process nodes like 18A/14A) but also on interconnects and assembly at scale, it strengthens the pitch that Intel Foundry can win meaningful workloads—not just science projects.
The elephant in the cleanroom: proving 18A credibility with top-tier customers
Even as Intel showcases future-facing tech, investors keep circling back to near-term validation: do major chip designers commit real volume to Intel Foundry’s leading-edge nodes?
That’s why an earlier Reuters-reported development—still reverberating through weekend analysis—continues to loom over sentiment: Reuters reported Nvidia evaluated Intel’s 18A manufacturing technology but stopped moving forward, citing sources familiar with the matter (Nvidia did not comment in the Reuters piece). Intel said its 18A technologies were “progressing well” and that it continued to see strong interest in its next-generation process, 14A, according to Reuters. [6]
Weekend market commentary has repeatedly pointed back to this as a reality check: Intel’s turnaround case leans heavily on foundry execution and customer wins, and “interest” is not the same thing as “long-term wafer agreements.”
Why the Nvidia partnership still matters (even without a foundry commitment)
It’s also important not to flatten the story into a single node-testing headline.
Nvidia and Intel previously announced a broad collaboration around AI infrastructure and PC products—and Nvidia disclosed an investment plan of $5 billion in Intel common stock (at a disclosed purchase price per share), subject to conditions including regulatory approvals. [7]
In that announcement, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, in part, that “AI is powering a new industrial revolution,” framing the collaboration as a way to tightly connect Nvidia’s accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPU ecosystem. [8]
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan described the combination of Intel platforms with Intel’s manufacturing and packaging capabilities as complementary to Nvidia’s AI leadership. [9]
In other words: even if Nvidia doesn’t (yet) become a marquee 18A foundry customer, the broader partnership still functions as a credibility lever for Intel’s “back in the game” narrative.
What Intel itself guided: Q3 results and the Q4 setup
For the most recent official financial baseline, Intel’s third-quarter 2025 results (released in October) remain the anchor for forecasts heading into year-end.
Intel reported Q3 revenue of $13.7 billion (up year over year) and provided Q4 2025 revenue guidance of $12.8 billion to $13.8 billion, along with EPS outlook ranges (GAAP and non-GAAP). [10]
Tan said the Q3 results reflected “improved execution,” and pointed to AI-driven compute demand as an opportunity across Intel’s portfolio, including x86 platforms, purpose-built ASICs/accelerators, and foundry services. [11]
CFO David Zinsner highlighted balance-sheet steps including accelerated U.S. government funding and investments by Nvidia and SoftBank as boosting operational flexibility, per Intel’s release. [12]
Investors should read that as the company defining its near-term scoreboard: execution consistency, liquidity, and a credible path for foundry to stop being a cash bonfire.
Analyst forecasts: cautious consensus, wide dispersion
After an ~80% surge narrative took hold across 2025 coverage, the sell-side picture still looks restrained.
MarketBeat’s compilation shows a consensus rating of “Reduce” based on a large set of analyst ratings, with an average 12‑month price target around the mid‑$30s (and a wide range between low and high targets). [13]
Markets Insider (Business Insider) likewise shows a hold-leaning consensus profile and a broad spread of published targets. [14]
That dispersion is the story: Intel is not being valued like a stable compounding machine. It’s being priced like an execution experiment with multiple plausible futures—ranging from “foundry flywheel works” to “capex-heavy grind continues.”
Market context heading into Monday: year-end momentum vs. headline risk
Intel is walking into the final trading days of 2025 amid a generally strong tape for U.S. equities. A Reuters “week ahead” piece noted the S&P 500 was approaching the 7,000 level as investors looked to close out a strong year, while also flagging ongoing debate around tech performance and policy outlook. [15]
For semiconductors specifically, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) ended Friday only slightly changed on the day, underscoring that even in a strong year, chip stocks can rotate hard depending on AI spend expectations and macro headlines. [16]
And geopolitical/trade tensions remain a live wire for the entire sector: Reuters reported China passed a revised foreign trade law aimed at strengthening its ability to manage trade wars, with the changes slated to take effect in 2026. [17]
What investors should know before the next session opens
Because the market is closed right now, the practical question becomes: what could move INTC when trading resumes?
1) Watch for any fresh “customer validation” signals (or the lack of them).
Intel’s foundry story moves most violently when a credible customer is perceived to be in (or out). The market has shown it will reprice quickly on headlines tied to leading-edge node adoption. [18]
2) Separate “concept leadership” from “revenue leadership.”
The packaging and multi-chiplet concept coverage adds to Intel’s narrative capital—but Monday’s price action tends to be driven by nearer-term certainty: margins, cost discipline, and credible volume ramps. [19]
3) Keep analyst target math in perspective.
When consensus targets cluster near the current price, INTC can trade like a tug-of-war stock: strong rallies may need new fundamental proof, while sharp dips can attract bargain hunters betting the turnaround is still in motion. [20]
4) Respect thin year-end liquidity.
Late-December sessions can exaggerate moves—especially in high‑narrative names—so investors often focus on whether Monday’s action shows real conviction (volume + follow-through) or just a holiday-week drift.
Intel’s 2025 storyline has been equal parts comeback and caution tape: bold partnerships, big manufacturing bets, and a management team trying to rebuild an execution culture—while the market keeps demanding proof that the foundry strategy can win durable, high-volume business.
When Monday’s bell approaches, INTC investors aren’t just watching a stock open—they’re watching whether the “New Intel” rhetoric begins to look like a measurable, repeatable operating system for the company. [21]
References
1. www.marketbeat.com, 2. www.benzinga.com, 3. www.benzinga.com, 4. www.linkedin.com, 5. www.tomshardware.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. nvidianews.nvidia.com, 8. nvidianews.nvidia.com, 9. nvidianews.nvidia.com, 10. www.intc.com, 11. www.intc.com, 12. www.intc.com, 13. www.marketbeat.com, 14. markets.businessinsider.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. indexes.nasdaqomx.com, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. www.reuters.com, 19. www.tomshardware.com, 20. www.marketbeat.com, 21. www.linkedin.com
