Intel's rerating vs. earnings

Intel goes into its April 23 earnings report with a stock price near $67 after a 2026 rally that has pushed the shares close to levels last seen around 2000. (intc.com, finance.yahoo.com) Intel has scheduled its first-quarter 2026 results for after the market closes on Thursday, April 23, with a webcast at 2 p.m. Pacific time. Yahoo Finance showed the stock at $66.98 in morning trading on April 21, up from the low-$38 range at the start of January. (intc.com, finance.yahoo.com) Analyst previews compiled ahead of the report point to about $0.02 in earnings per share on roughly $12.42 billion in revenue for the March quarter. Intel’s own January guidance for the period was $11.7 billion to $12.7 billion in revenue. (blockonomi.com, download.intel.com) The setup is unusual because the stock has rerated faster than the business has recovered. Intel’s fourth-quarter 2025 revenue was $13.7 billion, and Wall Street is still bracing for a softer first quarter even after the share surge. (financialcontent.com, blockonomi.com) The bet behind the rally is less about this quarter’s profit and more about whether Intel can become a credible contract chip manufacturer while also selling more processors into artificial-intelligence servers. TradingKey’s preview said investors are focused on 18A foundry customers, Xeon demand and foundry losses. (tradingkey.com) Intel’s 18A process is the manufacturing technology at the center of that story. Intel now says 18A is “ready for customer projects,” and the company said in October that Panther Lake laptop chips and Clearwater Forest server chips would be built on 18A. (intel.com, intc.com) The problem is that foundry progress has not yet erased the losses tied to building that business. Intel said on its January earnings call that the foundry operation had more than a $13 billion operating loss in 2024, and in April 2025 management said Intel Foundry lost $2.3 billion in that quarter alone. (download.intel.com, download.intel.com) Analysts have not fully followed the stock higher. Recent notes cited by market reports showed Mizuho at Neutral with a $59 target and Bernstein at Market Perform with a $60 target, both below where Intel traded on April 21. (invezz.com, finance.yahoo.com) That leaves April 23 as a test of whether management can back the rally with numbers or, more likely, with guidance on 18A, outside foundry customers and artificial-intelligence server demand. If Intel cannot show movement on those three points, the stock will be asking investors to keep paying up for a turnaround that is still mostly ahead of the income statement. (tradingkey.com, intc.com)