On Thursday, Intel Corp. shares are rising once more, and the recent robust advance may make them even more alluring.
The struggling chip stock is up 29.2% over its current four-session winning streak and up 10% in Thursday’s trade. According to Dow Jones Market Data, that might be the biggest four-day run for Intel (INTC) since the period ending Nov. 2, 1987, when it increased 38.3%.
Early on Tuesday, Vice President J.D. Vance emphasized the importance of U.S. semiconductor production to the new government, which gave Intel a boost. Investors believed that Intel, being the largest chip manufacturer in the United States, would greatly benefit from this.
Dan Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at Synovus, stated, “A Trump administration is going to be extremely committed to making sure Intel is successful in building out domestic fabs.”
Additionally, there is conjecture that the government would facilitate a production collaboration between Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor production Co. (TSM) (TW:2330), possibly through a joint venture in which TSMC invests in Intel’s foundry operations.
“Our view has been that [Intel’s] core server and PC businesses will no longer generate enough growth to absorb the significant costs for leading-edge fabs, and building a foundry business to drive additional volume will take too long and be too uncertain for investors to continue to finance such a strategy,” Chris Caso, an analyst at Wolfe Research, wrote on Thursday
According to him, a collaboration between TSMC and Intel “would represent a way out of this issue,” but it “does however appear difficult to implement.”
In a sales commentary note to clients on Thursday, Jordan Klein, a tech-sector analyst at Mizuho Securities, argued that Intel may become the “Golden Boy Turnaround Long Idea for 2025,” despite being a popular short bet among chip-focused hedge-fund managers.
Long-only investors may need to add Intel positions “in efforts to avoid missing one of the few winners” in the semiconductor industry thus far this year, according to Klein, since they do not currently have overweight positions in the company’s shares.
Even now, Intel’s stock has dropped 43% in a year and 63% in five.
A representative for Intel declined to comment on the increase in the stock or any of the rumors circulating around it.
According to Vance’s remarks at a Paris artificial intelligence summit earlier this week, some analysts think the Trump administration will try to persuade more chip companies to use Intel’s manufacturing facilities as clients in addition to continuing to support the U.S. Chips Act, which provides funding for the construction of new chip plants in the United States. Although Intel has split out its manufacturing and foundry operations, it has yet to get any major client contracts that would enable it to turn a profit and boost its income.
“They are definitely going to get more contracts,” stated G. Dan Hutcheson, a vice chair at the semiconductor-research firm TechInsights. He also mentioned that other chip makers are now assessing and contrasting TSMC’s most recent process with Intel’s, which will take time. With the exception of Intel and Micron Technology Inc. (MU), the majority of U.S. chip makers outsource their manufacture, primarily to Taiwan-based TSMC.
“The decision-making process is in place, because you are looking at the second half of 2026 before the real volume starts,” he stated, referring to competition Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.’s (TW:2330) 2nm, or two-nanometer, node manufacturing size and Intel’s 18a next-generation manufacturing process.
The rising belief that Intel’s 18a process could actually return it to the top spot above TSMC is another element driving the stock’s increase. Another expert, Scotten Jones of TechInsights, compared Intel’s 18a to TSMC’s 2nm earlier this week and came to the conclusion that Intel’s performed better.
In a paper that was also posted on the SemiWiki forum, Jones stated, “In terms of performance, we believe Intel 18A is the leader,” According to Hutcheson, TechInsights is the source of the paper. Additionally, a link to the document was posted on X, where some investors were citing it as a factor in Intel’s success.
“TSMC’s early yields from its initial manufacturing tests were promising, but they are currently coming at a high cost,” Jones said. “The early yield reports appear promising, but the reports of $30,000/wafer pricing do not in our opinion represent acceptable value for the process and may present an opportunity for Intel and Samsung to capture market share,” he said.
The situation at Intel is not entirely improving right now. The business is currently searching for a new CEO to succeed Pat Gelsinger, who was fired abruptly late last year as Wall Street became impatient with his long-term plan to keep Intel as a PC and server chip manufacturer while expanding into other markets.
“Finding someone with both product and foundry experience will take some time. As of right now, everything is going pretty well, Hutcheson added, “there is hardly anyone out there qualified [in both areas] other than people from Intel.”
Even if supposition and extrapolation are now driving the majority of Wall Street emotion, investors seem to be exploiting every available information to support their FOMO.
