Santa Clara, California, May 13, 2026, 07:05 PDT
- Intel slipped roughly 2% at the open, putting pressure on a six-week rally that’s tacked on over $440 billion to its market cap.
- Short interest remains close to its highest level in a year, despite bearish traders seeing more than $12 billion in paper losses, according to S3 Partners data reported by Bloomberg.
- This isn’t just about Intel—semiconductors have been the engine behind this year’s U.S. equity surge, so a pullback here threatens to ripple across the broader market.
Intel Corp. shares dropped early Wednesday in U.S. trading, giving short sellers a shot after one of the year’s fastest large-cap rallies on Wall Street.
Shares traded at $118.23, off roughly 2%. The session started at $124.05 and moved between $117.46 and $126.55, according to market data. Still, the chipmaker remains well below its late March levels.
Why it matters now: Intel’s shares are behaving differently these days—less like a sluggish recovery play. Since March 30, the Philadelphia semiconductor index has surged 64%, outpacing the S&P 500’s almost 17% climb. Intel? According to Reuters, its stock has nearly tripled in that stretch.
Chip stocks are now shaping the bigger market picture. Semiconductor and chip-equipment firms make up 18% of the S&P 500’s weighting, and according to JonesTrading’s Michael O’Rourke, roughly 70% of the $5.1 trillion increase in the index’s value this year has come from semis and memory stocks.
Intel shares have rocketed 214% since hitting their low on March 30, Bloomberg said, tacking on more than $440 billion in market cap and burning short sellers, whose paper losses now top $12 billion. Short interest—shares borrowed and sold in hopes they’ll drop—sits close to its highest level in a year.
“Intel’s almost like a poster child for the momentum trade right now,” said Matthew Unterman, managing director at S3 Partners, speaking to Bloomberg. “At some point, the momentum’s going to stall.” The Business Times
There’s still something for bulls to work with. Last week, Reuters cited the Wall Street Journal in reporting that Intel had landed a preliminary agreement to manufacture chips for Apple—a possible lift for the foundry segment, which handles production for third-party chip designs. Neither Intel nor Apple gave a statement. The report also left out which Apple gadgets might end up with the new chips.
Intel could land a client that no foundry wants to miss. Apple, which leans on Taiwan’s TSMC for chips, competes for space on those cutting-edge lines with AI players like Nvidia and AMD, according to Reuters.
Intel’s latest results have given bulls something to hold onto. First-quarter revenue ticked up 7% to $13.6 billion, with adjusted earnings landing at $0.29 per share. The company sees second-quarter revenue coming in somewhere between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion. Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan pointed to growing demand for Intel CPUs, wafer capacity, and advanced packaging—assembling chips into faster systems—as AI inference and agentic AI gain traction.
Execution and price are the sticking points here. According to Bloomberg, Intel’s stock is changing hands at over 100 times forward earnings—roughly five times its decade-long average. The consensus analyst price target sits near $85, signaling a 34% pullback from Monday’s close. In the first quarter, Intel booked a GAAP net loss of $3.7 billion, with adjusted free cash flow in the red by $2.0 billion.
Another red flag: too many people are in the same trade. “Anytime you see parabolic moves in anything, you have to ask yourself, are things getting too ebullient here?” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel, speaking to Reuters. Reuters
Prediction markets didn’t flag any shift in the manufacturing outlook. On Polymarket, a contract tracking odds of Intel and TSMC revealing a joint venture before July held steady at 0% for “Yes”—a focused market, unrelated to the reported Apple discussions. Polymarket
Intel shares are moving on a lot more than just earnings at this point. Apple, the AI buildout, Washington’s push for homegrown chip production—all of it’s in play, along with bets that the company’s embattled manufacturing unit can finally attract third-party clients. There’s not much margin for error here.
