Normally, when an analyst turns negative on a stock, that’s a sign to get out. But for chip maker Intel (INTC), it proved quite the opposite. Although Bernstein lowered estimates on Intel’s earnings, shares were up fractionally in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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Bernstein, via analysts Stacy Rasgon, Alrick Shaw, and Akhilesh Kumawat, released a note saying that the loss of the Huawei export license into China, which allowed Intel to supply Huawei with certain semiconductors, could hurt Intel’s second-quarter numbers, which are due out next week. That, in turn, prompted the team to drop Intel’s earnings per share estimates from $0.10 to $0.08 per share. Revenue also took a cut, going from $13 billion to $12.74 billion.
In addition, third-quarter estimates took a hit, as the earnings per share figure was lowered from $0.33 to $0.30, and revenue slipped from $14.7 billion to $14.4 billion. Rasgon also noted that Intel was basically in “…no man’s land to us…” with CPUs basically overshipping for the last several months. That could prove a drag on future earnings figures as well.
It’s worth noting that Rasgon is a five-star analyst who has enjoyed a 67% success rate on his ratings, with an average return of 25.7% per rating.
Backing Up Visually Impaired Coders
In a separate development, Intel rolled out a new font known as Intel One Mono. The product of VML, a marketing agency, and Frere-Jones Type, a type design practice, it’s intended to help those with visual impairments better see the text and use it to code.
Most typefaces, reports note, tend to stick to standard round or standard square shapes. However, that can make one character look a lot like another when dealing with the visually impaired. The new version, which features exaggerated rounding, helps letters, numbers, and similar figures look more distinctive and more readily used in coding.
Is Intel a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on three Buys, 13 Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 8.1% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $39.80 per share implies 27.20% upside potential.
