Business

Intel Stock Soars Over 7% as Chip Sector Rally Builds Ahead of AMD’s Big Earnings Report Tuesday Afternoon

Published

1 hour ago

5 August 2026

Intel shares surged more than 7% Tuesday morning, climbing to $97.93 as of 9:41 a.m. Eastern time, as semiconductor stocks broadly rallied ahead of a highly anticipated earnings report from rival Advanced Micro Devices due after the market closes.

Tuesday’s gains build on a volatile several weeks for Intel, whose stock has swung sharply between rallies and steep pullbacks even as the company’s underlying turnaround story, led by Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan, continues to unfold. Shares closed Monday at $91.00, up a modest 0.89%, before extending gains further in Tuesday’s session as broader risk appetite returned to the chip sector.

A wild recent stretch for Intel shares

Intel’s stock has been on an extraordinary run over the trailing 12 months, at one point posting gains exceeding 350% to 460% depending on the measurement window, as investors bought into the company’s turnaround narrative following a brutal stretch in 2025 that saw shares hit a 52-week low near $19. The stock later climbed as high as $142.35 before pulling back sharply in recent weeks amid broader semiconductor sector jitters.

Much of that recent volatility traces back to late July, when a disappointing earnings report from Samsung triggered a wave of selling across chip stocks tied to concerns about PC and server chip demand. Intel shares fell roughly 9% to 10% on multiple occasions during that stretch, at one point ranking among the worst performers in the S&P 500 on a single trading day as investors reassessed the broader chip sector’s near-term outlook.

Intel’s own second-quarter earnings, released July 24, initially failed to stabilize the stock despite topping expectations. The company reported revenue of $16.1 billion, up 25% year-over-year and ahead of the high end of its own guidance of $14.8 billion, while also guiding third-quarter revenue to roughly $16.3 billion, comfortably above analyst consensus estimates of $15.1 billion. Despite the beat, CNBC commentator Jim Cramer described the stock’s subsequent decline as “some of the most hideous selling” he had witnessed, attributing the drop to broader anxiety around AI infrastructure spending rather than any specific issue with Intel’s results. Cramer has since argued that Intel stock “belongs at $110,” well above where shares have traded in recent sessions.

Analysts remain divided on valuation

Wall Street’s views on Intel remain notably split heading into Tuesday’s rally. Rosenblatt raised its price target on the stock to $65 from $50 but maintained a Sell rating, arguing the stock’s dramatic run has outpaced its underlying fundamentals. That stands in sharp contrast to the broader Street consensus price target, which sits closer to $112, reflecting continued optimism from other analysts about Intel’s foundry business and its expanding role in AI infrastructure.

Susquehanna analyst Christopher Rolland has maintained a more neutral stance but raised his price target to $115 from $80 in recent weeks, citing stronger-than-anticipated server CPU demand, while KeyBanc’s John Vinh has taken a more bullish position, reiterating a Buy rating with a price target of $155.

Foundry progress and AI demand fuel optimism

Much of the bullish case for Intel centers on the ongoing revival of its foundry business, which has shown signs of improvement after years of losses and delayed manufacturing milestones. Intel’s foundry segment generated $5.4 billion in revenue during the first quarter, a 20% sequential increase driven by higher production of advanced chips, with external foundry revenue reaching $174 million during the same period. While the segment remains unprofitable, losses have moderated, and management has said it expects further operating improvement in the coming quarters.

Intel has also continued expanding its advanced packaging business, recently deepening a technology partnership tied to its EMIB packaging platform, an area where rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has reportedly been developing competing technology aimed at the same high-performance computing and AI chip market. Separately, research firm Omdia has projected global semiconductor revenue will surge 94.1% year-over-year in 2026, citing industry-wide bottlenecks in high-bandwidth memory production, a forecast that has added to broader bullish sentiment across chip stocks including Intel.

A rally tied to the broader market, not just Intel

Tuesday’s jump in Intel shares appeared closely tied to broader strength across the semiconductor sector rather than any single Intel-specific announcement. AMD shares also climbed sharply in Tuesday’s session ahead of its own earnings report, while the broader market extended a multi-day rally driven by easing tensions in the Middle East, falling oil prices, and a string of strong corporate earnings reports from companies including Caterpillar and Palantir Technologies. That supportive macro backdrop has helped lift previously beaten-down chip names, including Intel, even as some analysts continue to debate whether recent price gains fully reflect the execution risk still facing the company’s multi-year turnaround plan.

Government backing remains a factor

Intel’s rise over the past year has also been shaped in part by direct financial support from the U.S. government, which took a stake in the company last year as part of a broader push to maintain domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity. That backing, combined with new customer commitments from companies including Google and reported discussions involving Apple and Nvidia around potential foundry partnerships, has continued to feature prominently in the bull case for Intel shares even as the stock’s underlying earnings power remains a subject of debate among analysts.

With AMD’s second-quarter results due after Tuesday’s closing bell, investors will be watching closely for any read-through to Intel and the broader chip sector, particularly around AI infrastructure demand and server CPU competition between the two companies. Given Intel’s history of sharp single-session swings in both directions over the past year, analysts caution that Tuesday’s rally, like the sector-wide selloffs that preceded it, may prove more reflective of shifting market sentiment than a definitive signal about the company’s longer-term execution on its turnaround strategy.

Business

AMD Stock Jumps Over 5% Ahead of Its Highly Anticipated Q2 AI Chip Earnings Report Tuesday Afternoon

Published

49 seconds ago

5 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Oil Prices Plunge Below $95 as US-Iran Ceasefire Sparks Relief

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices climbed more than 5% Tuesday morning, trading at $509.31 as of 9:38 a.m. Eastern time, as investors positioned themselves ahead of one of the most closely watched earnings reports of the season, due after the market closes.

AMD is scheduled to release its second-quarter 2026 results Tuesday afternoon, a report analysts widely view as a critical test of investor confidence in the broader artificial-intelligence chip sector following a recent stretch of volatility across semiconductor stocks.

What Wall Street expects

Analysts surveyed by Wall Street firms are looking for AMD to report revenue of roughly $11.28 billion to $11.3 billion, up sharply from $7.68 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, representing year-over-year growth of about 46% to 47%. On the earnings side, consensus estimates call for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $1.55 to $1.62, compared with 48 cents in the year-ago period, reflecting growth of more than 235%.

AMD itself has guided toward second-quarter revenue of $11.2 billion, plus or minus $300 million. The company has topped Wall Street’s revenue estimates in each of its past several quarters, with an average earnings surprise of roughly 6.5%, according to Zacks Investment Research, giving investors some reason for confidence heading into Tuesday’s report even amid broader market caution around AI-related spending.

A strong year with a recent pullback

AMD’s stock has surged more than 120% year-to-date and climbed roughly 194% over the past 12 months, according to differing measurement periods cited by various analysts, driven largely by surging demand for the company’s data center processors and AI accelerator chips. Even so, the stock has pulled back meaningfully from its 52-week high of $584.73, falling as much as 27.7% at one point from its June peak as broader semiconductor stocks cooled following a massive run-up earlier in the year.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, a broad gauge of chip stock performance, had climbed more than 100% over the trailing 12 months before pausing around mid-June, with the group dropping roughly 20% in the weeks since as investors grew more selective about which AI-related companies could sustain their growth trajectories.

What analysts are watching most closely

Beyond the headline revenue and earnings figures, analysts say the most important elements of Tuesday’s report will center on AMD’s AI accelerator business, specifically shipment volumes for its MI350 chips and any quantifiable customer orders for its new Helios rack-scale AI systems, which the company has said will begin shipping to customers, including Microsoft, in the second half of this year.

Gross margin performance is also expected to draw close scrutiny. Consensus estimates project AMD’s full-year 2026 gross margin reaching close to 56%, up from 52% in 2025, though the company’s chief financial officer, Jean Hu, has previously flagged that the ramp-up of Helios systems could create near-term margin pressure, as AMD’s early Instinct GPU systems have run below the company’s overall average margin.

AMD’s first-quarter results, released in early May, offered a preview of the kind of reaction Tuesday’s report could generate. That quarter saw revenue climb 38% year-over-year to $10.25 billion, comfortably beating analyst expectations of $9.85 billion, while adjusted earnings per share rose 43% to $1.37, also ahead of consensus estimates. The stock jumped nearly 19% in the session immediately following that report, driven largely by record-setting server market share within AMD’s data center segment.

Recent analyst moves reflect optimism

Heading into Tuesday’s results, several Wall Street firms have raised their price targets on AMD in recent days. Susquehanna lifted its forecast to $500 in late July, while Mizuho and Wedbush both raised their targets to $625 and $600, respectively, around the same time. The average analyst price forecast for the stock currently sits near $582, according to data compiled by Benzinga, with the stock carrying an overall consensus Buy rating. Separately, 24/7 Wall St. has set its own 12-month price target at roughly $564, implying meaningful additional upside from recent trading levels.

A broader AI market opportunity

AMD’s growth story has increasingly centered on the expanding market for AI server infrastructure, a segment some analysts project could grow nearly sixfold between 2024 and 2030, reaching an estimated $838 billion in annual revenue by the end of the decade. The company’s expanding partnership with Microsoft, which has committed to using additional AMD Epyc server processors and increasing its adoption of AMD’s Pensando networking chips within Azure’s cloud infrastructure, has been cited by several analysts as a key factor that could support stronger-than-expected results heading into Tuesday’s report.

AMD’s push into rack-scale AI systems, designed to let major server manufacturers deploy AMD’s chips more easily at scale, represents a significant strategic shift for the company as it looks to capture a larger share of the AI infrastructure market currently dominated by rival Nvidia.

Tuesday’s advance in AMD shares appeared to reflect broader improving risk appetite across the market rather than a specific company catalyst ahead of the report, according to market analysts, coming as the stock rebounded from a recent slide below its short-term moving averages and approached a key technical support level near $498. With earnings due after the closing bell, investors will be watching closely for management’s guidance on the pace of the Helios ramp and broader AI chip demand, factors analysts say could matter more to the stock’s trajectory in the months ahead than the specific revenue and earnings figures reported for the just-completed quarter.

Business

Lodging REITs: Cheap Enough To Bounce, Not Own

Published

8 minutes ago

5 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Lodging REITs: Cheap Enough To Bounce, Not Own

The REIT Team of Chilton Capital Management, a Houston-based investment adviser, is headed by co-portfolio managers Bruce Garrison, CFA, and Matt Werner, CFA. Mr. Garrison has over 40 years of experience analyzing public REITs both on the buy-side and the sell-side. Mr. Werner joined Mr. Garrison on the Chilton REIT Team in 2009. The REIT Team’s strategy primarily pursues investments in publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) and real estate related entities based primarily in North America. The REIT Team believes public REITs are superior vehicles for investing in real estate due to their liquidity, transparency, and total return characteristics. Investing in public securities enhances the REIT Team’s ability to diversify by geography, sector, strategy, property, and tenant while maintaining portfolio liquidity. REIT property types include apartments, regional malls, shopping centers, lodging, office, industrial, self-storage, data centers/cell towers, and a variety of health care related facilities. The REIT Team focuses on traditional methods of security analysis; primarily research, critical thought and analytical depth, which are integral to their investment process. The REIT Team’s investment approach seeks to combine its real estate industry experience with traditional methods of security selection to make sound investment decisions in real estate companies. The Chilton REIT Team manages Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) for high net worth individuals and institutions. Additionally, the REIT Team is the sub-advisor for an open-end investment company, the West Loop Realty Fund (tickers: REIIX, REIAX, and REICX). Before investing one should carefully consider the West Loop Realty Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. This and other information is in the prospectus and summary prospectus, a copy of which may be obtained by calling 800-207-7108. Please read the Fund’s prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing. The Fund may not be suitable for all investors. We encourage you to consult with appropriate financial professionals before considering an investment in the Fund. Liberty Street Advisors, Inc. is the advisor to the Fund. The Fund is part of the Liberty Street family of funds within the series of Investment Managers Series Trust. The Fund is Distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC. Chilton Capital Management, LLC is an independently owned and operated firm formed in 1996. Chilton provides investment advisory services for registered investment companies, private clients, family offices, endowments, foundations, retirement plans and trusts. For more information about Chilton Capital Management’s REIT Team, please visit www.chiltoncapital.com/reit/ or email info@chiltoncapital.com. Additional information about Chilton Capital Management LLC is also available on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. The searchable IARD/CRD number for Chilton Capital Management LLC is 104592.