Turning red from the trough! Intel Corporation (INTC.US) has risen for eight consecutive days, increasing its market value by billions, analysts are cautiously optimistic.

Intel Corporation (INTC.US) stock price has been soaring for 8 consecutive trading days, increasing its market value by over $100 billion, making it one of the hottest stocks in the S&P 500 index. However, Wall Street analysts remain cautiously optimistic about the stock. Intel Corporation rises from the bottom to become "top tier" A series of positive news in the past two weeks have reignited investors' enthusiasm, as they believe that this chip manufacturer may be able to turn around its underperformance in recent years. Intel Corporation's stock price just had its best weekly performance since January 2020, surging 51% in the past eight trading days, marking the largest increase in trading days since its listing in 1971. Thomas Hayes, Chairman and Managing Director of Great Hill Capital, which manages approximately $1 billion in assets and holds Intel Corporation stock, said, "It has clearly moved out of survival mode." The surge began with an announcement in early April: Intel Corporation agreed to buy back half of its stake in an Irish factory from Apollo Global Management Inc for $14.2 billion. This move is seen as a sign of progress in the company's transformation. Hayes stated, "It has positioned itself in an expansion phase rather than a survival phase." Intel Corporation achieves its largest weekly gain since 2000 Last week, Intel Corporation announced its participation in Elon Musk's Terafab project, developing semiconductors for Tesla, Inc., SpaceX, and xAI, which once again boosted Intel Corporation's stock price. Subsequently, Alphabet's Alphabet Inc. Class C pledged to use Intel Corporation's future generations of Xeon processors in data centers. This recent uptrend has pushed Intel Corporation's stock price to a cumulative increase of 69% so far this year, and last year the stock rose 84% due to investments from NVIDIA Corporation, SoftBank Group, and the U.S. government. Currently, the U.S. government's stake in Intel Corporation is valued at approximately $27 billion, more than triple its initial investment and slightly less than the annual expenditure on childcare services in the U.S. "Intel Corporation's momentum continues to be strong," wrote Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes in a report last Friday, where he raised the stock's target price for the third time this year. "The argument for Intel Corporation as a strategic foundry asset seems to be validated every day." The stock is currently down about 8.9% from its high in 2020, while the S&P 500 has surged by over 100%, partly due to the soaring stock prices of major artificial intelligence chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA Corporation, Broadcom Inc., and Micron Technology, Inc. Cautiously optimistic Wall Street analysts Wall Street analysts are far from convinced that Intel Corporation has emerged from its darkest hours. Among the 52 analysts covering the stock tracked by Bloomberg, only 10 have a "buy" rating, 6 have a "sell" rating, and the number of sell ratings is more than twice the average for S&P 500 component stocks. The stock's composite rating (reflecting the proportion of buy, hold, and sell ratings) is only 3.15 points (out of 5), ranking last among chip manufacturers. In addition, Intel Corporation's current trading price is about 27% higher than the average target price given by analysts, indicating that its stock price has risen too quickly. Currently, Intel Corporation's forward price-to-earnings ratio exceeds 90 times, reaching a historical high. This value is more than 50% higher than the peak of the internet bubble period, while the average price-to-earnings ratio of the chip stock index is about 21 times. Intel Corporation's valuation multiple reaches historic highs However, some analysts believe that investors need to take a longer-term view of the company. Bloomberg's data shows that while Intel Corporation is expected to lose about 17 cents per share this year, it is projected to earn 33 cents per share by 2027 and $2.13 per share by 2029. Jay Goldberg, an analyst at Seaport Group, is one of the analysts who raised the stock's rating for 2026. He believes that Wall Street may be underestimating Intel Corporation's long-term earnings prospects. Despite the "completely crazy" valuations in the entire chip industry, he believes that Intel Corporation has a greater potential to exceed market expectations. He said, "NVIDIA Corporation faces significant challenges in exceeding expectations this year, whereas Intel Corporation, which has experienced years of decline, is more likely to surprise on the upside in terms of profitability."