Everything MoneyANALYSTAug 3, 2026“Intel is not a buy here — the 250% run-up has priced in the turnaround, and heavy debt plus a hollow foundry leave poor risk/reward.”
Why he says it — point by point
FAVORABLE & AGAINST · BOTH KEPTWhy
the stock has already run up more than 250% this year, which means an awful lot of good news may already be banked into the price.
They only made $2.83 billion in cash flow last year. Their 5-year average is actually negative.
if you assign a 20 PE to this $4 in profit, it makes it an $80 stock four years from now. It's currently 84 bucks. How do you make money on that?
Only about 290 million of that came from actual outside customers. Almost all the rest was just Intel's factory charging Intel's own divisions, basically moving money from one pocket to another. And that foundry still lost over $2 billion in a single quarter.
Investors get excited and start pricing Intel like it's a giant AI superstar. When in reality, it is still a supporting player fighting AMD on one side and Nvidia on the other. If today's price assumes Intel wins big in AI, that's a risky bet.
Intel plans to spend over $20 billion this year building factories and even more next year. It's already carrying a fair amount of debt, and when asked directly, Intel's finance chief wouldn't rule out selling more shares to raise money.
Risk
Intel's data center and AI business grew 59% last quarter and its profit there nearly quadrupled. Intel even said it couldn't make these chips fast enough to keep up with demand.
The whole company swung from losing money to a healthy 17% operating margin and they pulled it off partly by cutting costs while sales grew, which is exactly a recipe that makes profits explode.
Even though it sold fewer chips last quarter, its PC revenue still grew because it raised prices by 27% selling fancier, more powerful AI PC processors.
they still have a good brand and a good reputation, and that can help in the long run.
The structured call
The receipt
Publish-day price $$91.00 · the claim is anchored to the moment it was said.
