

Intel is making progress. But it isn’t out of the woods yet.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Intel still has a long way to go to reclaim its former glory. The problem is that investors are acting like that’s already happened.The storied chip maker’s stock price has soared 88% so far this year, and more than tripled over the last 12 months.
That has taken the company’s market capitalization close to the $350 billion mark for the first time since 2000, when it was the undisputed leader of both designing and manufacturing the most advanced semiconductors on the planet. Intel also now trades for more than 130 times its projected earnings for this year, far above the peak multiple of 60 times that the stock briefly touched during the dot-com bubble.That is a risky price for a company still trying to pull off an ambitious turnaround.
And even if fully successful, Intel’s stock is pricing in a level of earnings power that looks hard to achieve, given the company’s shifting business model and the competitive realities of the AI chip market.Intel is scrambling to catch up to TSMC in chip manufacturing technology after ceding its lead several years ago. At the same time, the company is trying to pull off a complex business model shift, whereby it designs its own chips while also manufacturing chips designed by others.
And it is trying to win back share for the processors it designs for servers and personal computers.All these are still works in progress, though some notable progress has been made. Intel struck a deal in September with Nvidia to co-develop a new class of chips for data centers and laptops.
That deal kicked off the stock’s recent run, but developments since then have given the shares even more juice. Even social-media posts by President Trump have made an impact; Intel’s
. Read on livemint.com