Intel Stock Rises Premarket As Analyst Upgrades On ‘Follow-On’ Investments — Is A New 52-Week High Ahead?

Seaport analysts anticipate that the stock will be driven by follow-on investments and the potential for a "stop-gap solution" in the near term.

Intel Corp. (INTC) stock could see follow-through buying in Thursday’s session, as an analyst’s upgrade pushed the stock up by over 3.50% in the early premarket session. If the upward momentum accelerates, Intel’s stock remains on track to challenge the 52-week high of $32.38 hit last Thursday. 

On Wednesday, Intel rallied 6.4% after a Bloomberg report said the company had approached Apple (AAPL) regarding a potential investment. This comes on top of a $2 billion commitment from SoftBank and a 10% stake picked up by the Trump administration in August. Last week, Nvidia announced that it would invest $5 billion in the struggling chipmaker.

Following these developments, Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg upgraded Intel stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell,’ according to the summary of note published on The Fly on Thursday. While believing that Intel was “on the wrong path with a shrinking window" to save its fabs, the firm said the stock will likely be driven by follow-on investments and the potential for a "stop-gap solution" in the near-term. Seaport said it remains cautious on the company's longer-term fundamentals.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment toward INTC tempered slightly to ‘bullish’ (62/100) as of early Thursday, from ‘extremely bullish’ a day ago. The message volume on the Intel stream was at ‘high’ levels.

Intel stock has gained nearly 56% year-to-date.

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