Intel shares jump nearly 5% after New Street upgrades the stock to Buy
Intel shares rose 4.9% to a session high, with the stock trading near $93 after a Wall Street upgrade put the chipmaker back in the spotlight.
The catalyst was New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu, who moved Intel from Neutral to Buy. For a company that spent years as the cautionary tale of American semiconductors, getting a Buy rating still feels a bit like a comeback tour.
What New Street is betting on
Ferragu set a price target of $125 on the stock. Measured against where shares were trading at the time, that implies a potential upside of around 38%.
His core argument centers on server CPUs, the processors that run inside data center machines. Ferragu pointed to rising demand driven by agentic AI, meaning AI systems that carry out multi-step tasks on their own rather than just answering a single prompt.
Ferragu expects this demand to keep supply tight for several years. He projected that Intel could expand its server capacity by more than 50% by 2027.
The longer-range figure is bigger. Ferragu estimated that server CPU sales could reach $50 billion by 2030.
A second upgrade in about a week
New Street was not the first firm to warm up to Intel this month. On October 19, 2026, JPMorgan upgraded the stock from Underweight to Neutral, with a target price of $85.
JPMorgan’s reasoning was more measured. The bank cited improved operational execution under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, plus a more balanced risk/reward setup after shares fell roughly 36% from their earlier highs in June.
There is also a notable gap between the two calls. With shares trading near $93, Intel already sits above JPMorgan’s $85 target, while New Street sees room to climb to $125.
The numbers behind the optimism
The upgrades did not arrive out of nowhere. Intel’s Data Center and AI segment posted Q2 2026 revenue of $6.3 billion, up 59% year over year.
Profitability in that unit improved even faster. Operating margins expanded from 16.1% to 39.5%, more than doubling over the period.
Earnings are the real test
The timing of the rally puts extra weight on what comes next. Intel is scheduled to report Q3 results on October 29.
Wall Street analysts expect adjusted earnings per share of $0.40, which would mark a 74% increase from the prior year. The revenue forecast stands at $16.5 billion, up 21% year over year.