New York, May 26, 2026, 19:01 (EDT)
Intel shares closed 3.1% higher at $123.52 on Tuesday, extending a volatile comeback trade as investors bought into chipmakers tied to artificial intelligence demand and U.S.-backed semiconductor production. The Nasdaq-listed stock finished near the upper end of a wide session range, with volume above 107 million shares.
The move came as U.S. trading resumed after Monday’s Memorial Day market closure. Nasdaq says its regular session runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time, with Memorial Day listed as a full 2026 market holiday.
Why it matters now: the broader tape helped. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on Tuesday, with tech shares lifted by surging chip stocks, while the Dow ended lower. CFRA Research’s Sam Stovall said the cross-asset moves showed “the market’s not really sure what should happen,” as investors weighed chip momentum against oil and geopolitical risk. Reuters
Intel’s rally also sits inside a bigger repricing of its turnaround under Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan. Investors have been treating central processing units, or CPUs — the main chips that run servers and PCs — as a fresh AI trade because inference, the process by which AI systems answer user queries, needs large amounts of general-purpose computing.
The competitive read was mixed but still chip-heavy. AMD, Intel’s closest CPU rival, rose 7.8% on Tuesday, while Nvidia, the dominant AI graphics-chip maker, slipped 0.3%; Intel’s gain landed between the two and kept it in the day’s semiconductor flow.
The foundry story remains the swing factor. A foundry is a contract manufacturer that builds chips designed by other companies. Reuters reported earlier this month that Intel had reached a preliminary deal to make some chips for Apple devices, citing the Wall Street Journal, though the products, manufacturing technology and expected volume were not clear.
That uncertainty has not stopped investors from looking for alternatives to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Reuters reported this month that TSMC’s advanced capacity is tight as Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom absorb supply for AI chips. “TSMC is the real bottleneck,” Semianalysis President Doug O’Loughlin told Reuters. Reuters
Washington is part of the trade too. Reuters reported last week that the Trump administration took a 10% stake in Intel last year and that the government’s position had grown to more than $50 billion eight months after the deal. The stake has made Intel both an industrial-policy bet and a stock-market story.
Intel’s own numbers give both sides ammunition. The company said first-quarter revenue rose 7% from a year earlier to $13.6 billion, while it posted a GAAP net loss of $3.7 billion, using standard accounting rules. CFO David Zinsner said Intel saw the “growing and essential role of the CPU in the AI era,” and the company forecast second-quarter revenue of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion. Intel
Analysts are watching whether demand can move from hope to orders. “If the foundry business can start contributing in a meaningful way in 2027 – as expected – that should really show that the company’s turnaround is complete,” TECHnalysis Research President Bob O’Donnell told Reuters in April. Reuters
But the risk paragraph is not small. Intel still has to spend heavily to build competitive manufacturing, and a preliminary Apple arrangement is not the same as large-volume production. If TSMC capacity loosens, if Apple work proves narrow, or if Intel slips on process technology, Tuesday’s rally could look more like a crowded momentum trade than a clean recovery.
For now, traders are paying for optionality: AI server demand, U.S. support, possible Apple volume, and the chance that Intel can turn its factories into a business other chip designers need. That is a lot to price in. It also explains why the stock keeps moving.
