Intel Stock Is Sliding Friday: What's Driving The Action?

Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) shares are trading lower Friday morning, hit by a combination of recent, disappointing corporate guidance and a surprisingly weak U.S. jobs report that stoked fears of a broader economic slowdown.

What To Know: The primary catalyst for Intel’s recent weakness is the company’s own bleak forecast. Intel last week slashed its full-year outlook, citing weakening PC demand and a slowdown in its crucial data center segment.

The negative guidance accompanied second-quarter earnings and revenue figures that both missed analyst estimates, signaling fundamental challenges for the chipmaker.

Compounding the negative sentiment Friday was the morning’s U.S. labor market data, which showed the economy added just 75,000 jobs in July, far below expectations.

The report, which also included downward revisions for May and June, painted a picture of a “cracking” labor market and heightened concerns about the health of the economy. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.9%.

What Else: As a cyclical company, Intel’s sales are highly sensitive to the confidence of consumers and businesses. A weak jobs report fuels recession fears, which causes consumers to delay large discretionary purchases, such as new personal computers, a key market for Intel’s processors.

This trend would worsen the weakening PC demand the company has already cited as a major headwind. Similarly, during economic uncertainty, corporate clients cut back on capital expenditures.

This means reduced spending on the IT infrastructure and servers that populate data centers, directly hitting Intel’s lucrative data center and AI business.

Friday’s poor macroeconomic data suggests that the demand environment for Intel’s primary products could deteriorate further, adding external pressure to a company already struggling with internal turnaround efforts.

Benzinga Edge Rankings: According to Benzinga Edge proprietary stock rankings, Intel’s profile highlights a sharp contrast between its current performance and its underlying valuation. The company receives extremely low scores for Momentum (23.34) and Growth (15.96), reflecting the stock’s sharp price decline and the company’s deteriorating financial outlook.

This bearish sentiment is further confirmed by a negative price trend across short, medium, and long-term horizons. However, the data also shows a strong Value score of 75.42.

This suggests that following the steep sell-off, the stock is now considered potentially undervalued based on fundamental valuation metrics, which may attract investors looking for a bargain.

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, INTC shares are trading lower by 2.35% at $19.32. The stock has a 52-week high of $27.55 and a 52-week low of $17.66.

Read Also: Intel Exec Exodus As CEO Lip-Bu Tan Slashes Workforce, Delays Ohio Chip Plant In Major Shake-Up: Report

How To Buy INTC Stock

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Intel – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy “fractional shares,” which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share.

In the case of Intel, which is trading at $19.22 as of publishing time, $100 would buy you 5.2 shares of stock.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to “go short” a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.

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