Intel's stock dropped 6% after weak Q1 revenue and profit forecast.

Intel got crushed Thursday night. The stock fell hard, down 6% in after-hours trading, after the company posted a brutal first-quarter forecast.

This came right after it beat Wall Street estimates for Q4, which you’d think would help. It didn’t. The moment investors saw the weak Q1 guidance, they hit the sell button fast.

For the fourth quarter, Intel posted 15 cents per share in adjusted earnings, blowing past the 8 cents that Wall Street expected. Revenue came in at $13.7 billion, also ahead of the $13.4 billion estimate. But the company said it expects Q1 revenue between $11.7 billion and $12.7 billion, with breakeven adjusted EPS. That’s worse than what analysts were expecting: 5 cents per share on $12.51 billion in sales.

Intel reveals $600 million loss as foundry optimism fades

The company reported a net loss of $600 million, or 12 cents per share, for the quarter. That’s a big jump from the $100 million loss or 3 cents per share it posted during the same period last year.

Investors had been betting heavily on Intel, with the stock up 147% in the past year, mostly thanks to hope that its foundry unit would finally get a serious outside client. But now that hope’s running on fumes.

CEO Lip-Bu Tan had previously said the company’s 18A manufacturing technology “over-delivered” last year. That’s the same node meant to compete with TSMC’s 2nm process. He claimed the tech was good enough to start volume production, including for Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs.

Lip-Bu said the company was “working aggressively” to ramp up 18A supply to meet “strong customer demand.” But there’s no big customer yet, and that’s what’s killing the buzz.

Finance boss David Zinsner told CNBC that customers for the next-gen 14A node would appear in the second half of 2026. He didn’t name any names and didn’t sound too confident they’d be revealed publicly. “Once we get them, we’re gonna need to start really spending capital on the 14A front, and that’s how you’ll know,” Zinsner said.

He also blamed the bad Q1 guidance on low inventory, saying Intel didn’t have enough supply for typical seasonal demand. So, not only is the foundry business still stuck waiting on clients, but it’s not even ready to meet orders when they come in.

AI server chips rise, laptop chips fall, and Nvidia buys in

There was some growth in Intel’s Data Center and AI segment, which made $4.7 billion this quarter. That’s a 9% jump from last year. Analysts said it’s tied to more spending on AI infrastructure, and Lip-Bu agreed, saying Intel’s CPUs are playing a bigger role in powering systems for artificial intelligence.

But while server chips went up, laptop chips didn’t. The Client Computing Group, which handles chips for PCs, fell 7% year-over-year, dropping to $8.2 billion in revenue.

The foundry division brought in $4.5 billion, though that figure includes chips Intel made for itself. No one’s buying the hype until they land outside clients. Right now, it’s all internal shuffling.

During 2025, Nvidia, SoftBank, and even the U.S. government poured money into the company. Intel confirmed that it completed a $5 billion stock sale to Nvidia during the quarter, making Nvidia a major shareholder.

The rest of the market looked a little better on Thursday. Stocks rallied as geopolitical fears eased. The Dow Jones gained 306.78 points to close at 49,384.01. The S&P 500 rose 0.55% to 6,913.35, and the Nasdaq ended at 23,436.02, up 0.91%, lifted by gains in Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta. But those gains didn’t help Intel, which got hammered anyway.

Even with the broader rally, the S&P 500 is down 0.4% for the week, and the Nasdaq is off 0.3%. Only the Dow is still clinging to a small weekly gain.

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