We know that chip stock Intel (INTC) has been looking for a new CEO for months now, since the departure of previous CEO Pat Gelsinger and the ascension of two co-CEOs to take over the top slot, if only temporarily. Some word has emerged about a possible candidate for a more permanent replacement. It will be a good play to take this with a grain of salt, though, as investors are doing, with shares down 1.5% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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Recently, Globalfoundries (GFS) had a bit of a change-up in its management team, the reports noted. That led Thomas Caulfield, CEO of same, to step down, and become the executive chairman therein. Tim Breen, meanwhile, was bumped up from his former status as chief operating officer, reports noted.
This could ultimately lead to one of two outcomes from there, the reports noted. We could see Caulfield take over at Intel outright, or see him in charge of Intel’s foundry operations, which earlier reports had suggested might be in line for a spin-off. Now, all of this is extremely early stage stuff, so any part of it could ultimately fail to coalesce in the days ahead. But Caulfield has quite a bit of experience in chipmaking; he was involved with semiconductor manufacturing not only at Globalfoundries, but also at IBM (IBM).
Chips on the Line
Meanwhile, new developments have emerged about Intel chip models, and the news on these is somewhat mixed. The Core i9-15900K has apparently showed up on testing workbenches, and the news is less than stellar. Benchmarks have emerged from Geekbench 6.4, with single-core applications landing 2,279 points and multi-core testing hitting 11,690. These scores, however, suggest that Geekbench simply mislabeled a 14900K, which would likely prompt relief for chip watchers.
Lastly, the Nova Lake desktop specs have also emerged, offering up a total of 52 cores. That is up from earlier reports which suggested that the processor line would have 48 cores. Again, this is still somewhat in flux, as the numbers themselves demonstrate, so we may hear more about this line before a full release arrives.
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 five Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 54.6% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.94 per share implies 14.9% upside potential.
