Over the past week, a consortium of Wall Street firms raised their 12-month price targets on Intel shares by an average of 8%, citing stronger-than-expected guidance for capital expenditures and a renewed focus on advanced process technology. Barclays boosted its target to a 20% premium over current levels, highlighting management’s plan to invest $20 billion in state-of-the-art manufacturing capacity through 2028. However, consensus earnings-per-share estimates for fiscal 2026 remain largely unchanged, with the average forecast stuck at $4.10—a sign that analysts still doubt meaningful margin expansion given persistent competition from TSMC and Samsung.

Intel rallied more than 10% in a single session last Thursday on 1.5 times average daily volume, propelled in part by a public endorsement from the President of the United States praising CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s strategy to repatriate chip manufacturing. Despite the spike, short interest ticked up 3% over the fortnight, indicating renewed skepticism. Meanwhile, revisions to consensus revenue estimates for Intel’s data-center segment were downwardly adjusted by 2.5% for Q1, reflecting concerns over cloud customers’ moderation in server purchases as macro uncertainty persists.

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger cautioned investors that U.S. chip manufacturing remains in its infancy despite recent milestones. He emphasized that, while Intel has commenced pilot shipments of its 18A node—promoted as the industry’s first sub-2-nanometer architecture—full production volumes will not reach economically viable levels until late 2027. Gelsinger noted that only 5% of global leading-edge wafers are currently produced on American soil, underlining the decades-long shift required to rebuild a domestic fabrication ecosystem that he says is vital for national security and long-term profitability.