New York, July 6, 2026, 06:06 (EDT)
- Intel was up 2.86% in premarket trading after falling 5.25% in the last regular session.
- The early quote clawed back about 52% of Thursday’s drop in dollars, nearly matching AMD’s 53% bounce and well ahead of Nvidia, which got back just 12%.
- Intel’s up 226.15% for the year so far, making the stock look like a momentum play, not a sluggish chip recovery.
- Intel’s server CPU demand and foundry story come up next with results on July 23.
Intel Corporation NASDAQ:INTC traded up 2.86% at $123.79 ahead of the open, snapping back $3.44 after falling $6.67 on Thursday. That means the shares tried to recover more than half of last session’s loss in premarket, but didn’t get back all of it.
Nasdaq was in premarket trading. Official session is 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern, with premarket open from 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. The exchange stayed closed July 3 for the Independence Day holiday.
Semiconductors stayed under pressure. The PHLX Semiconductor Index ended July 2 at 12,626.22, losing 727.06 points, or 5.44%. Nasdaq says the index tracks companies in chip design, distribution, manufacturing and sales with a modified market-cap weighting.
Chip stocks moved unevenly. Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ:AMD clawed back around half its earlier loss, according to delayed MarketWatch quotes. Nvidia Corp. NASDAQ:NVDA was mostly flat in early trading.
| Stock | Last regular close | Prior-session move | Premarket quote | Dollar drop recovered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel NASDAQ:INTC | $120.35 | fell 5.25% | $123.79, up 2.86% | 52% |
| AMD NASDAQ:AMD | $517.82 | dropped 4.26% | $530.00, up 2.35% | 53% |
| Nvidia NASDAQ:NVDA | $194.83 | down 1.39% | $195.16, up 0.17% | 12% |
This is important because Intel isn’t seen as a bargain anymore. MarketWatch says shares are up 226.15% for the year so far and 435.13% over the past year. That’s despite Intel reporting a loss of 63 cents per share and showing no P/E ratio. AMD is up 141.79% year-to-date, and Nvidia has gained 4.47%.
| Company | YTD move | Market value | P/E | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel NASDAQ:INTC | up 226.15% | $604.88 billion | N/A | -0.63 |
| AMD NASDAQ:AMD | up 141.79% | $844.36 billion | 169.95 | 3.05 |
| Nvidia NASDAQ:NVDA | up 4.47% | $4.71 trillion | 29.84 | 6.53 |
Analyst views on Intel are mixed. TipRanks said HSBC Holdings NYSE:HSBC analyst Frank Lee raised his Intel target to $200 from $100 and stuck with a Buy, calling Intel’s foundry push “too good to ignore.” TipRanks also reported Wall Street’s average Intel target at $101.09, which suggests 16% downside, with 11 Buys, 25 Holds and two Sells in the last three months. TipRanks
Intel plans to post its second-quarter numbers after the bell on July 23, with the earnings call set for 2 p.m. PDT.
Intel raised its outlook in April. The company put second-quarter revenue guidance at $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion, ahead of the $13.07 billion analysts expected, according to LSEG. Intel is also guiding for adjusted profit of 20 cents per share, more than double the 9-cent estimate. “This is not just our wishful thinking – it is what we hear from our customers,” CEO Lip-Bu Tan told analysts on the earnings call. Reuters
Manufacturing remains the tough hurdle. “TSMC is the real bottleneck,” SemiAnalysis President Doug O’Loughlin told Reuters in May. Seaport Research’s Jay Goldberg added, “No company in history has ever fallen off the Moore’s law curve and made it back on.” Reuters
The sector rotation story is adding risk to Intel’s rebound. Warren Pies, strategist at 3Fourteen Research, told MarketWatch to expect “a violent rotation” in momentum stocks in July. “My view is that this is going to be an especially volatile July,” Pies said. MarketWatch, citing FactSet numbers, said the Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF gained about 44% in Q2, but then slipped 6.6% in the first two sessions of July. The Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF is down 11.4% so far this month through Thursday. MarketWatch
Intel traded 419,540 shares before the open, compared with a 65-day average of 135.56 million for the regular session. The 52-week range ran from $18.97 to $142.35, with the premarket bid about 13% off the top end.
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