New York, June 24, 2026, 04:27 EDT
- Intel climbed 2.66% before the bell after dropping 6.14% Tuesday.
- The stock stayed roughly 12% higher than its June 17 close, even after last week’s Apple and foundry surge.
- Sales from outside-customer foundry business are still small. The question now is if that interest will show up in production revenue.
Intel shares moved higher in early pre-market trade Wednesday, recouping some of Tuesday’s drop. Still, the stock is holding the premium it gained after last week’s Apple foundry news.
Intel traded at $135.80 as of 4:26 a.m. EDT, up 2.66% from Tuesday’s close of $132.28, which was down 6.14%. U.S. markets aren’t open yet; Nasdaq pre-market hours run 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. ET.
Intel shares finished at $121.10 on June 17. The stock surged 10.64% the following day on 233.91 million shares traded, 75% above its 65-day average. Shares touched a 52-week intraday high of $141.45 on Monday. Early Wednesday, Intel was still trading about 12% higher than the June 17 close and about 4% under the recent high.
That’s important since the trade isn’t only tied to Intel’s sales of central processing units—the standard chips in PCs and servers. The market’s also pricing in hopes for a foundry push. A foundry produces chips for third-party designers.
Trump said last week Apple had agreed to team up with Intel to design and make chips in the U.S. Reuters reported Apple and Intel didn’t comment right away, and Trump didn’t give details on which chips Intel might produce.
Intel’s external Foundry business remains small. In the first quarter, Intel reported $174 million in Foundry revenue from outside customers, while total Foundry sales came to $5.4 billion. The unit recorded a $2.4 billion operating loss. By that calculation, external customers made up just over 3% of Foundry revenue.
Intel last week bulked up its foundry business, tapping Seok-Hee Lee as executive vice president of Intel Foundry. Lee, ex-chief of SK Hynix and SK On, is taking over advanced packaging, system integration, and back-end manufacturing. Advanced packaging involves combining chip parts in one package to boost performance.
Intel can “lead in advanced packaging,” Lee said in the company’s release. That’s what the stock is hanging on: investors see packaging and foundry capacity as a possible way for Intel to break into AI supply chains, even without taking big orders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, which still builds most advanced chips for Nvidia and Apple. Newsroom
The chip sector is under pressure. The Philadelphia semiconductor index slid 7.9% Tuesday. The Nasdaq Composite was down 2.2%. Nvidia gave up 4.1%. Micron dropped 13% ahead of its earnings report coming after Wednesday’s close.
Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird, said the AI chip trade is “vulnerable to relatively small shifts in sentiment.” That could hit Intel too, he said, even as its foundry push is a more company-specific story compared to the memory-chip run that has lifted Micron and others. Reuters
Intel buyers got a lift from the company’s latest earnings. First-quarter revenue came in at $13.6 billion, a 7% rise, and non-GAAP EPS hit 29 cents. Non-GAAP adjusts out certain items. For the second quarter, Intel is guiding for revenue between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner said the company had a good quarter thanks to “strong demand and better than expected available supply.” Non-GAAP gross margin was 41%, Zinsner said, citing higher volume, product mix and pricing as drivers.
But there’s a big catch. Apple hasn’t confirmed the report, and neither has Intel. Foundry keeps bleeding cash, and revenue from outside customers remains a drop in the bucket compared to how much it costs to ramp up. If 18A yields miss, or if customers just test Intel with small runs and send volume business to TSMC, the premium Intel’s stock is getting from the foundry story could evaporate fast.
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