Intel Stock tumbles after Q2 earnings report

(Andrej Sokolow/Getty Images)

Intel’s job cuts can’t distract Wall Street

Analysts say the company’s turnaround will take years: “In the meantime, Intel will continue to burn cash and concede more market share.”

Matt Phillips

7/25/25 9:18AM

Usually job cuts are just the thing to warm Wall Street’s heart.

But Intel’s disclosure that it plans to shed more than 20,000 additional jobs by the end of the year — made as part of its Q2 earnings report Thursday — still couldn’t spare the shares, which are now plunging on Friday.

There are a few factors at play: the company reported a significantly worse-than-expected adjusted loss. Sales were slightly better than expected, but were juiced by a surge of purchases and orders aimed at getting ahead of tariffs.

And Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, still faces an enormous turnaround challenge. In the Q2 earnings release, Tan did address one of the giant issues facing the firm: how to move forward with the company’s ailing contract chipmaking business, known its “foundry” in semiconductor lingo.

In its 10-Q filing, Intel said that it may “pause or discontinue” plans to pursue its next-generation chip manufacturing process — known as 14A — if it was unable to get a concrete commitment from a customer that wants to use the platform.

That sort of sounds like a decision. But the problem, from the perspective of Wall Street, is that customers won’t really be making those hard commitments on whether or not to use Intel’s 14A foundry process for a long time, leaving the company to languish, perhaps for years.

“Customer decisions on 14A node adoption won’t be made for another 18-24 months,” JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur wrote. “In the meantime, Intel will continue to burn cash and concede more market share.”

He added, “we believe the multi-year turnaround story is progressing slowly, with a lack of upside catalysts in the near term, and we remain comfortable with our Underweight rating.”

Others saw the announcement on 14A as an important step toward exiting the foundry business altogether — the decision that Wall Street analysts, by and large, seem to be hoping for.

“We believe the move towards foundry optionality is a step in the right direction,” Jefferies analysts wrote.

Still, the verdict from the market seemed clear. The shares dropped more than 9% in early trading on Friday’s, which if sustained for the full session would be their worst drop since the market’s tariff-related freak-out in early April.

Max Knoblauch44m

Budget airline stocks dip as Spirit pilots ratify contract that’ll help the carrier stay afloat

Low-cost airlines JetBlue and Frontier are trading lower on Thursday following the news that Spirit Airlines pilots ratified modifications to their labor contract that will lower costs for the carrier, which filed for bankruptcy in August.

According to the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Spirit pilots approved a deal that included “temporary reductions to pay rates and retirement contributions.” Beginning January 1, hourly pay will be reduced 8% and retirement contributions will drop by half from 16% to 8%.

"Spirit pilots made a difficult choice that provides the Company with what it needs from labor to secure financing and complete its restructuring,” said Captain Ryan P. Muller, chairman of the Spirit Airlines Master Executive Council.

Wall Street sees Jetblue and Frontier as the biggest beneficiaries to Spirit’s woes, and both carriers have attempted to purchase Spirit in recent years.

Matt Phillips1h

Planet Labs rips on strong earnings report

Satellite services company Planet Labs was on track for a new record closing high after rising more than 35% in early afternoon trading on Thursday.

The roughly $5 billion company posted better-than-expected quarterly results and guided toward higher-than-expected sales for the current quarter after the close of trading Wednesday.

“AI continues to be a major tailwind as the company is seeing significant demand through enhanced capabilities for its advanced satellite data solutions,” wrote Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives, adding “We continue to believe the PL is well-positioned at the intersection of Space and AI.” He has an “outperform” — basically a “buy” — rating and a price target of $20 on the stock.

Other satellite services AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab also enjoyed a bump on Thursday, seemingly riding the momentum of Planet Labs’ numbers.

Planet Labs Stock Soars After Earnings Report. Why Shares Are Headed to the Moon.

Other satellite services AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab also enjoyed a bump on Thursday, seemingly riding the momentum of Planet Labs’ numbers.

The East Side of the US Capitol Building in the early morning, Washington DC, USA.

Health insurers rise after the Senate rejects competing healthcare plans

The Democratic plan would have extended tax credits, while the GOP plan would have replaced them with HSAs.

J. Edward Moreno1h

Max Knoblauch3h

Rivian sure picked a bad time for its AI Day as investors dump tech stocks

The event coordination team at Rivian is probably having a bad one, as investors dumped the stock ahead of its “Autonomy and AI Day” amid a broader AI trade sell-off.

Heading into the event that began at noon ET, Rivian shares were down 5%, following a strongly negative reaction to Oracle’s earnings results. The stock began climbing as Rivian’s event started, but remains in the red on the day.

A year flush with tariffs and the end of the EV tax credit has pushed Rivian to pitch a techier version of its future. During Thursday’s event, Rivian said its forthcoming vehicles would ditch Nvidia chips for its own AI chips produced by Taiwan Semiconductor.

The vehicles will feature lidar sensors, enabling “level 4” autonomous driving (similar to Google’s Waymo), the company said. According to CEO RJ Scaringe, the updates will allow Rivian to “pursue opportunities in the rideshare space,” hinting at future robotaxi plans, which rivals Tesla and Lucid have already begun.

Wall Street appears skeptical of Rivian, with Morgan Stanley this week downgrading the stock to “underweight” and dropping its price target to $12. Lucid, which in October announced it’s planning a privately owned autonomous car built with Nvidia tech, also received a downgrade.

Rivian turns to AI, autonomy to woo investors as EV sales stall

Luke Kawa4h

Robinhood tumbles after November trading volumes post monthly drop across equities, options, and crypto

Robinhood Markets is getting crushed today, and not just because it’s the place where people go to buy AI stocks (which are under big pressure after Oracle’s earnings report). As stocks retreated in November, activity on the platform did, too.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

The brokerage reported that November trading volumes fell across equities, options, and crypto compared to October. Equity notional volumes were down 37% month on month, options contracts traded were off 28%, and crypto notional volumes fell double digits. The bright spot: its prediction markets business is still in boom mode, with 3 billion contracts traded, up 20% versus the prior month.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch trimmed his price target on the shares to $152 from $155 following this release, noting that this monthly decline was somewhat expected.