Intel bucks market slump after Wall Street upgrades

While the market slid early Tuesday, Intel soared as the American chipmaker received a pair of upgrades:

• HSBC analysts lifted their rating on the stock to “hold” — essentially “neutral” — from “reduce,” Wall Street-speak for “sell.” The analysts nearly doubled their price target for the shares to $50 from $26. (That’s essentially where the stock is currently trading.)

• Seaport Global also boosted its rating to “buy” from “neutral,” with a $65 price target.

Improving demand for CPUs — Intel’s bread-and-butter processors — is behind HSBC’s newfound enthusiasm for the shares. Analysts at the bank wrote:

“We had been cautious on Intel mainly given overall uncertainty on customer pipeline and execution headwinds in their foundry business while the core business was also lacking visibility on growth drivers. However, we now turn more positive as we expect the traditional servers (DCAI) to get back on a growth trajectory. We expect there is an overwhelmingly increasing demand for server CPUs driven by rising agentic AI... While the stock has moved up 19% YTD (vs S&P 500 up 1%), we believe there is further [data center and AI group] upside still not fully priced in. Hence, we upgrade Intel from Reduce to Hold.”

HSBC seems to be slightly understating the extent of the gains for the stock so far in 2026, as its share price has risen nearly 30% since the end of last year. But the gains are even more impressive if you date them to the partial nationalization of the ailing American chip giant, which was announced on August 22. Almost a month later, Nvidia announced a strategic partnership with the company, giving it a massive shot in the arm. Since then the stock is up more than 90%.