Chip stock Intel (INTC) has faced increased competition and internal missteps in recent months, but a new report reveals one less-considered but equally troubling factor: It is made clear that That’s an analyst’s perspective. And while this news wasn’t great, Intel’s stock soared on other news, rising nearly 9% in Friday afternoon trading.
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The report noted that sentiment towards Intel has declined significantly over the past three months. During that time, no one was bullish on Intel, but three months ago, one analyst was at least somewhat bullish. The report features six different analysts who have rated Intel that way over the past three months, with clear winners in the “indifferent” range, but there were also more bearish ratings. Pointed out. Two companies were completely bearish, one company was slightly bearish, and one company was slightly bullish.
TipRanks’ own data on this topic shows that a Hold rating is by far the leader when it comes to analyst ratings for Intel. We’ll break it down in more detail at the end of this article. But suffice it to say that holds are leading by more than 5-1 in terms of both buys and sells.
But what about the elephant in the room?
Meanwhile, the biggest news today is clearly Intel’s confirmation that it is an acquisition target, based on a report from technology newsletter SemiAccurate. The report said Intel is almost certainly a takeover target. Surely we’ve heard this before. We heard in September that Qualcomm (QCOM) was eyeing Intel, but Qualcomm ultimately decided to wait before making that attempt.
So MarketWatch asked whether there really is a “meaningful” buyer for Intel. SemiAccurate noted that potential buyers were not interested in buying parts of Intel, which the company has been systematically selling over the past few months. No, this buyer wanted the whole shootout, and again, this wasn’t a name we’d heard before. And Intel’s market cap is currently around $134 billion, so a buyer would have to be very deep-pocketed to pull off a deal like this.
Is Intel a buy, hold, or sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts are positive on INTC stock based on 1 Buy, 21 Hold, and 4 Sell assignments over the past three months, as shown in the chart below. We have a consensus rating of Hold. While the company’s stock price has declined 53.53% over the past year, INTC’s average price target of $24.56 per share implies an upside potential of 15.04%.

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