Traders Purchase High Volume of Intel Call Options (NASDAQ:INTC)

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) saw some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Stock investors bought 735,494 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 30% compared to the typical volume of 566,588 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

INTC has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Intel in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “sell” rating and set a $14.00 price objective on shares of Intel in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on shares of Intel from $26.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 19th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Intel from $19.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, September 19th. Finally, Erste Group Bank raised shares of Intel from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, September 22nd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-four have issued a Hold rating and six have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $26.19.

Intel Price Performance

Shares of Intel stock opened at $36.83 on Friday. Intel has a 52-week low of $17.67 and a 52-week high of $38.08. The stock has a market capitalization of $161.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.72 and a beta of 1.33. The company has a fifty day moving average of $25.47 and a 200-day moving average of $22.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.24.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The chip maker reported ($0.10) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.01 by ($0.11). Intel had a negative net margin of 38.64% and a negative return on equity of 3.78%. The business had revenue of $12.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.88 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.02 EPS. Intel’s revenue for the quarter was up .5% on a year-over-year basis. Intel has set its Q3 2025 guidance at 0.000-0.000 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Intel will post -0.11 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Intel

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Intel by 2.3% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 385,903,735 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $8,644,244,000 after buying an additional 8,513,298 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Intel by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 203,617,629 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $4,561,035,000 after buying an additional 3,168,824 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Intel by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 97,563,079 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $2,174,854,000 after buying an additional 1,760,773 shares during the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA raised its holdings in Intel by 4.3% during the 2nd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 80,298,180 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $1,798,679,000 after buying an additional 3,313,890 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in Intel during the 2nd quarter valued at $1,579,378,000. 64.53% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Intel Company Profile

Intel Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells computing and related products and services worldwide. It operates through Client Computing Group, Data Center and AI, Network and Edge, Mobileye, and Intel Foundry Services segments. The company's products portfolio comprises central processing units and chipsets, system-on-chips (SoCs), and multichip packages; mobile and desktop processors; hardware products comprising graphics processing units (GPUs), domain-specific accelerators, and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); and memory and storage, connectivity and networking, and other semiconductor products.