Intel Earnings: Wall Street Looks for Proof the Recovery Is Real | Investing.com

Chipmaker Intel (NASDAQ:) reports earnings this Thursday after the bell — here’s what to watch.

Intel beat analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $13.58 billion, up 7.2% year on year. It was an exceptional quarter for the company, with a beat of analysts’ EPS and operating income estimates.

Key highlights:

• This quarter, analysts expect Intel’s revenue to climb 12.3% year-over-year (vs. flat a year ago) and have largely reconfirmed estimates over the past 30 days, a sign they expect steady performance into earnings. Intel seldom misses revenue targets.
• Intel has jumped 187% year-to-date as investors wager on sustained chip demand from the AI boom. The company has seen particularly strong uptake of its CPUs — the processors powering agentic AI — as technology gains traction.
• “The next AI wave will push intelligence closer to users, shifting from foundational models to inference and agentic systems,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said on April 23. “That transition is driving much greater demand for Intel’s CPUs, wafers and advanced packaging.”
• Wall Street expects demand to stay strong. “We expect server CPU volumes to grow double-digits through the year,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Srini Pajjuri wrote Monday, maintaining a Sector Perform rating and an $80 price target on Intel.
• As per Reuters, Intel and AMD are seeking longer China server-CPU supply commitments as the AI data-center boom pushes demand beyond GPUs into mainstream processors, driving some China server-CPU prices up more than 40% year-to-date.
• Semafor reports Intel is weighing a partnership with SK Hynix on an Ohio chip fab.
• Intel plans job cuts in its data-center group as part of a broader push to “become a more focused and efficient company.”

Investors Focus:

• Analysts will watch for disclosure of a potential new customer “Apple”. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Apple and Intel reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices, and President Donald Trump tweeted on June 18 that Apple had agreed to work with Intel to design and build chips in the U.S.
• Despite stronger demand, cost cuts and potential new partnerships, Intel shares are down 5.1% from their all-time closing high of $140.94 on June 22, 2026, and look set for their worst month since August 2024, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
• Broad rotation out of chip stocks has hit Intel too. Some on Wall Street fear AI-hardware spending may not be sustainable and could cool, and those concerns combined with hefty gains across the sector have sparked a recent selloff.
• Intel’s earnings and guidance should shed needed light on the timeline for sustained chip demand amid lingering concerns.

Analysts Expectation:

• A Morgan Stanley analyst kept Intel (INTC) at Equal-Weight and raised the price target to $75 from $73.
• A Susquehanna analyst kept Intel at Neutral and raised the price target to $115 from $80.
• KeyBanc kept an Overweight rating on Intel and raised its price target to $155 from $110.

INTC Q2 2026earningsafter market(4:01 pm ET) ThursdayJuly23, 2026

Expected Move by Option Expiration:

Options pricing implies INTC could move about ±$12.53 by week’s end after the results, which would put shares below $91 or above $115.10 from Wednesday’s close.

The put/call ratio favors calls for this week’s expirations, shifts toward puts next week, and then shows stronger call flows over the following three weeks.

Technical Analysis Perspective:

• Intel shares are up over 160% YTD on deal speculation and stronger-than-expected results but remain more than 30% below last month’s highs after a recent AI-trade pullback.
• INTC rejected at the 141–142 level twice, forming a double-top pattern with bearish implications.
• That pattern led to a sharp sell-off from late June into July, bottoming at 89.60 last Friday.
• Stock is trading inside a falling-channel pattern, confronting resistance at 105.50, with a midpoint near 93.40 and support around 84.00.
• Base case: failure to clear 105.50 before or after earnings would likely push the stock down toward 84.00.
• Alternate case: a decisive, sustained break above 105.50 would target 110–115.

Daily Candlestick Chart

Intel Seasonality Chart:

Since 2007, INTC has ended July down in 45% with an average decline of 1.11%, while August has fallen in 47% of years with an average drop of 0.89%.

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Ali Merchant is a seasoned financial market professional with expertise in Technical Analysis, Treasury & Capital Markets, Trading, Sales, Research, Training, & Fund Management. He is the founder of www.twtlearning.com providing financial education, research and advisory services to fund & hedge fund managers and family offices.

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