While chip stock Intel (INTC) has done quite a few things to raise cash as it struggles to regain its place in the chip market, one thing that it does not plan to do is sell off its stake in self-driving car technology firm Mobileye (MBLY). That affirmation proved pretty endearing to investors, as Intel was up nearly 3% in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
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It’s possible Intel did not see much value in selling off its Mobileye stake; shares are down around 73% for the year, reports noted. Given that Intel paid $15.3 billion for its Mobileye stake back in 2017, it would be a safe to suggest it’s not worth that much today; Mobileye’s entire market cap today is less than $10 billion. Intel, meanwhile, publicly declared support for Mobileeye, stating, “We believe in the future of autonomous driving technology and in Mobileye’s unique role as a leader in the development and deployment of advanced driver assistance systems.”
Demand for Mobileye’s systems has been soft of late, though. Demand is intermittent, and it recently pared back annual forecasts for revenue and profit, thanks to growing weakness from the Chinese market.
An Unexpected Win
Intel has enjoyed some surprising wins of late, mostly owing to unexpected big sales. One more win emerged from the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, a budget processor that turned out to have a lot more horsepower under the hood than anyone expected.
Benchmark testing information leaked, with the key being that this budget processor managed to perform sufficiently to put it between the Core i9-13980HZX and the Core i5-14600K/KF. In fact, it nearly outperformed the Core i5, and managed to do so without having hyperthreading available to it. That’s something of a feat, and it may make the Core Ultra 5 that much more attractive in a market that might be more amenable to a budget-friendly processor right now.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds and seven Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 37.51% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $25.47 per share implies 19.02% upside potential.
