Intel Stock: Yield Gains Temper Foundry Skepticism as Q2 Earnings Approach

Intel shares bounce 2% after technical breakthrough in 18A chipmaking process, but foundry delays to 2027 and analyst skepticism keep stock below 52-week high.

Intel shares edged up 2.07% on Thursday to €98.55, snapping a sharp sell-off as reports of a technical breakthrough in the company’s most important chipmaking process offered a counterweight to lingering concerns about its foundry roadmap. The stock remains 20.9% below its 52-week high of €124.58, hit on June 30, but the latest news suggests the manufacturing side of Intel’s transformation may be gaining traction.

According to industry research firm BlueFin Research Partners, Intel has resolved yield variability on its 18A fabrication node, achieving stable production at its Phoenix and Hillsboro facilities with roughly 30,000 wafers per month. That output underpins the upcoming Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest processors, both critical to the "IDM 2.0" strategy that aims to turn Intel into a viable contract manufacturer rivalling TSMC. Yet the same 18A process that is now showing promise has also seen its timeline slip: primary benchmarks indicate the node may not reach full commercial deployment until late 2026 or early 2027, a gap that has weighed on sentiment.

The paradox of simultaneous progress and delay is reflected in the stock’s recent trajectory. Intel has rallied 392.9% over the past twelve months from an August 2025 low of €16.69, and is up 193.3% year to date. But the last seven trading sessions lopped off 9.75% of the share price, and the seven-day loss before Thursday’s bounce was 6.52%. On a monthly basis, however, the stock remains ahead by 5.50%, underscoring how fresh and steep the latest pullback has been. The 14-day relative strength index has fallen to 44.6, exiting overbought territory and suggesting that selling pressure is exhausting. At €98.55, the stock is 3.88% below its 50-day moving average of €102.52 and stands firmly above the 200-day average of €54.33, leaving the long-term uptrend intact.

Analyst opinion is deeply split. HSBC recently doubled its price target to the equivalent of roughly $200 a share, the highest on Wall Street, arguing that the foundry business is "too good to ignore" as a Western alternative to TSMC. The bank’s confidence is bolstered by reports that Tesla is evaluating Intel’s 14A node for future manufacturing needs. On the other side, the consensus target stands at just €88.19 — more than 10% below the current price — reflecting the market’s skepticism about whether Intel’s nearly €486 billion market cap can be justified when its cutting-edge foundry operations won’t be running at scale until at least 2027.

Intel is leaning on price increases for consumer and data-center processors to cushion the massive capital outlays required by the foundry build-out. Some server CPU mark-ups run to several hundred or even over €1,000 per unit. But competitive pressure is mounting: rival AMD has overtaken Intel in quarterly data-center revenue for the first time, and the broader semiconductor sell-off — the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has lost ground on concerns about stretched valuations in AI infrastructure — has added to the headwinds.

All eyes now turn to July 23, when Intel reports second-quarter earnings after the close. The conference call will be a pivotal moment for CEO Pat Gelsinger’s "foundry-first" strategy. Investors want concrete updates on the 18A ramp, evidence that reported yield improvements are translating into narrower operating losses in the foundry division, and clarity on how the company plans to stem data-center market-share losses. For a stock that has swung from €16.69 to €124.58 in less than a year, the answer to those questions will determine whether the current recovery is the start of a sustainable turnaround or merely a technical bounce in a drawn-out bet on Intel’s industrial reinvention.